FUNDAMENTALLY TRANSFORMED: Another Double-Digit Homicide Spike:

Since Donald Trump started to make the crime uptick a centerpiece of his campaign (often invoking inaccurate or exaggerated data), many journalists and fact-checkers have made a point of noting that Americans are actually safer than they have been for most of the past several decades. And this is true—since the crime wave broke in the mid-1990s, the murder rate has fallen dramatically. Fewer Americans are killed every year now than were when President Obama took office.

But as with most social phenomena, including immigration and the economy, what matters when it comes to public perception of crime is not the absolute level but the rate of change. And the last two years have seen more than a 25 percent increase in the rate of killing, according to FiveThirtyEight data. This is a significant surge, and it’s not surprising that Americans’ concerns about crime and violence are at their highest than at any time since 2001.

While Trump has pushed crime to the center of the public debate, he has offered more bluster than policy proposals for reducing the number of killings. Meanwhile, journalists and experts who should be thinking about policy fixes have been busy scoffing at Trump or declaring concerns about rising murder rates to be a front for bigotry. It’s time for this issue to be taken seriously as a failure of governance—for wonks and policymakers to put the difficult task of crime control at the top of their agenda. And that probably means hiring more cops and detectives and helping police departments build better relationships with the communities they protect.

Words not included in this item: “Ferguson effect.”