A report recently released by a Washington organization that researches the effects and toll of gun violence found that Nebraska has the highest Black homicide victimization in the country. The Violence Policy Center‘s (VPC) annual study, “Black Homicide Victimization in the United States: An Analysis of 2011 Homicide Data,” notes that this trend is a public health crisis in the making.
Released last week by the VPC, the study’s sobering numbers were gathered in the report to highlight the devastating effects gun violence has on Black teens and adults. Using the most-recent data from theSupplementary Homicide Report (SHR) data from the FBI, the VPC report uses both national and local authorities’ numbers from 2011.
In the introduction to the report, it was stated that the SHR data showed that there were 6, 309 Black homicide victims in the United States, with their homicide rate being 17.51 per 100,000. In comparison, the national homicide rate overall was 4.44 percent, with Whites at 2.64 per 100,000.
Nebraska’s alarming homicide rate was an astonishing 34.43 per 100,000 with nine out of 10 victims killed via gun violence. According to these numbers, Nebraska’s rate is nearly double that of the national homicide rate average for Blacks.
“Gun violence is a public health crisis that touches all Americans, but the impact on African Americans is especially devastating,” states VPC Executive Director Josh Sugarmann. “This report should be a wake-up call for our elected officials to address the disproportionately high-homicide victimization rate among Black men and women. The longer we wait to act, the more lives will be lost.”
Missouri, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Kansas, Wisconsin, West Virginia, and North Dakota round out the top 10 states with the highest Black homicide rates.
Learn more about the Violence Policy Center’s report here.
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