The BLM Effect

The death of George Floyd in May 2020 caused a widespread moral panic about racism and policing, which was commonly called the “Black Lives Matter” movement (BLM). Many local governments, especially in large cities, responded by reducing police activity in various ways.

See George Floyd and the Madness of Crowds.

In this essay, I will assess the effects of the BLM movement on mortality in the US. As expected by some of us, there was a big increase in the homicide rate in 2020.

All data are from the CDC. Note that most Hispanics are classified as “White” in the data.

As you can see, there was a large increase in the homicide rate immediately after the George Floyd incident. The increase was highest in the black population, who are the majority of homicide victims and offenders, despite being roughly 13% of the population.

The chart above shows the same data, in stacked format, so that you can see the total increase in the homicide rate.

The preceding chart shows the homicide deaths by race and year. The increase was highest in 2021, as you would expect from an event that occurred in the middle of 2020 and had long-term effects.

The preceding chart shows deaths by motor vehicle accidents during the same time period. There was also an increase in the death rate from traffic accidents, as you would expect from depolicing.

The preceding chart shows the excess deaths, calculated by subtracting the number of deaths in 2019 from the amount for each year after 2019. In total, there were 21,782 excess deaths from homicide during those four years, and 23,584 excess deaths from motor vehicle accidents, for a combined total of 45,366.

This is just a crude approximation, but it gives some idea of how many deaths were caused by BLM. Of course, we don’t know what would have happened otherwise, but it is reasonable to assume that the death rates for homicide and motor vehicle accidents would not have increased much, if at all. There could be other factors involved, such as illegal immigration, but the data fit the depolicing hypothesis very well.

I did not consider other causes of death, such as drug overdoses, which could also be affected by depolicing. We should also keep in mind the many victims who did not die, but suffered from injuries due to violence and motor vehicle accidents. There were other effects of the mass insanity, including rioting and looting in many cities. But the biggest effects were probably due to depolicing.

The data also show how human nature responds to incentives. We need the police to maintain public safety. Policing creates incentives that reduce crime.

The BLM effect shows how mass irrationality, due to virtue signaling, has real-world consequences.