>> "washington journal" continues. host: jeff asher joins >> a crime analyst and consultant founder and cofounder of data analytics with the rise of the homicide

rate lock onto the program. >> tell us about your company what you look at specifically? >> twoye years ago largely within the criminal justice sector with data analytics so the prosecutor offices that have no experience doing data or analytics starting off on the ground floor learning what infrastructure looks like in the types of data you want to be collecting and ultimately the tools that allow you to analyze data for smarter policies. >> it depends everything from traffic stops to traffic tickets to use of force in misconduct complaints all the

way to specifically management type topics like evaluating overtime usage. it really depends on the need and availability. host: correct me if i'm wrong the early on in the pandemic crime was down at that time? >> we talk about crime really how the fdi on - - fbi defines it which is property crime and violent crime. property crime was down as much as 50 percent in the early part of the pandemic largely because a drophe in mobility where five and crime was down slightly and then rebounded s varies slightly last year. ninety-nine.8 percent of crime is not homicide but people tend to thinknd of homicide and murder for very good reason

murder was up 25 percent or more last year. host: our guest comes to this position from the new orleans police department from jefferson parish and the cia defense department as an analyst with your own company data analytics. how commonly is your data used? >> first rarely it is our data is usually collected by the agency that we are the conduit for police departments if they want to use our services to look at smarter and better. the personal analysis we keep a running tab of murders nationwide and those that were frequently cited in media and

journals for "the new york times" even slate. host: but looking at cities acrossok the country and in portland oregon at 53 from 2020 and homicide rate is up 76 percent and it was up 35 percent and 28 percent there is a common theme in the rise of crimees across the city and others? >> yes that they were americans cities. that preliminary data to the end of last year shows murder was up 20 percent or more in cities of every type so those under 10000 between 100,000 and over a million all of

those had at least 20 percent in the suburbs and then up 15 percent in rural counties. so from that available evidence most comes from cities publishing data but not just cities or big cities that saw a big rise. those reporting data so far that murder was up in 80 percent at least 30 percent. what we saw last year was dramatic and historic and nearly universal. host: with the rise of homicide rates and some assigned sewer nationwide the cpu options to regain control what are the options of federal assistance that could

be offered this time? >> normally you see a surge of federal resources. increases in fbi. usually in grants and probably see the biden administration proposalin to work on contracting with a large rise of gun violence and those that are trying to do large intervention of gun trafficking so they are limited options it is so big andve hyper local so the things that empower those communities

need to be more effective in the long run and the federal government law enforcement responses in terms of what in the short term makes any traffic changes. >> didn't the trump administration try with more fbi resources? i believe it was chicago in 2020 or 2019? >> a handful of cities not too dissimilar of a response but law enforcement focused. the major issue it is a drop in. the bucket a massive universal increase and to really make a dramatic increase the answer was

inherently law enforcement i think the cause was more complicated and the solution as you will see a decrease in murders. >> as a crime analyst a age analytics talk about the rise of homicide in particular. we welcome your comments in the eastern and central time zones. is there any correlation between the rise of homicide and other crimes? >> typically there's only a week relationship between auto theft and murder and that was the one according to the fbi preliminary data.

there is a relationship there. it is possible typically you see an increase of shootings so that leads to an increase of the evidence free hypothesis i don't know the exact reason to goer back the last 25 years if murder goes down auto theft goes down so last year even more strongly related. >> so those that started to go up in terms of cities and that easing of restrictions hasn't been any signs of where the crime is going project leader homicide rate? >> right now 72 cities murder is up 18 percent and historically you can do a

decent job of predicting the marital on - - the murder sign we know murder is that the real challenge is too understand what it means and if it is a valid comparison because we know last year it isn't just that murder is at 25 percent but 15 percent through june and then 25 percent through december so there was the a acceleration that picked up so we are comparing those months and so the question is if it's up 18 percent now as fast as it did last year and to go up seven or eight or nine or 10 percent so that is a

tragedy historically is very bad with more murders since the early nineties if that's the case but it would show it is not inherently getting worse and with a nine-month pandemic 2020. >> is there any correlation between the availability of gun sales and 2020 and the rising crime or the restrictive gun laws is there a correlation? >> it's not inherently correlation betweenen gun laws because it's tough to rank the gun laws and in addition just like states l like indiana it just means ar large number of

chicago shootings would come from outside of illinois. the correlation exist with the number of guns they are covering which is not and homicide which is the implication louisiana where i'm from leading and also has the highest rate of firearms to be recovered so certainly there is some evidence of a relationship there with a high murder rate. host: let's get to the calls starting with mark on - - mike from ohio. >>caller. >> i appreciate you being on. i have 1 million things to say. i will keepou it short growing up in the country outside of toledo, was curious if your company provides any data

public or private if the people in the cities committing the crimes have access to jobs, public transportation system is there ranking data compiled with a correlation undergo a gun under everybody i knows oh guns they don't kill another human being's i'm curious do you dive that deep into the statistics off the certain demographics? thank you. >> that's a little deeper than we tend to go and the challenges usually the information is how relatively tightly law enforcement agencies it's not inherently something most law enforcement agencies tend to look at that

it's in conjunction with an academic partner doing much more deeper academic research then we tend to do. host: from new york good morning. >>caller: good morning. my question has to do with the funding the police and other large cities and the riots that happened right after george floyd. the action to defined the police has a definite effect that we cannot track the drug trafficking in the cities. they lost their undercover agents in new york city and the gangs are taking over and affecting everybody's safety. i don't think we can defined theha police can you address

that. >> this is something i have looked into i tracked 105 cities in the data from 2019 and 2020 there is no relationship between the rise of murder and those that increase the police budget. and a couple of reasons for that wine is that the budget is relatively small and happened and relatively late in the year like that minneapolis police budget new orleans it in november new york didn't later in the year. someone likely to have i any impact on 2020 and it is relatively normal in times of

economic stress about 34 percent of them is pretty much on par responding to the great recession there is a lot of talk about the funding with police budgets but the places that did itbs ended it substantially so the 105 cities that i looked at it was 79 percent that increase police budget and it was an 84 percent the really not a meaningful difference but the bigger question is whether or not the changes most places that produce them are looking to increase them now in the or notn is whether that has a longer-term impact

i know for budgetary reasons there was a hiring freeze from the police department they lost 400 officers they've only been able to gain back 100 officers in seven years so that's the type of thing that can have a long-term impact on the law enforcement agencies capabilities. so when we talked about reducing police budgets and whatever reason for moral or defend the police, the longer-term implication is more troublesome and the short-term implication. host: are you hearing any anecdotal evidence that police departments are pulling back of the enforcement in certain areas perhaps is in the aftermath of all protest last year with theeo george floyd

killing? >> i look at this and we look at the cities of available data and we found that there was a definite drop of arrest and stop it started march and april in response to the pandemic and people being quarantined. then it picked up a littleed bit in may and then june and july and started to pick up to the end of the year. there is a pattern or a pullback it is a inherently an explanation why murder rose last year only because in a lot of places like new orleans and new york and average 50000

arrest per year in ten years ago and had 1,502,019 with the murders and half a century so there is no clear relationship and a change of gun violence any other reason being but adjustment next of what happened in march and april survivor the police pulling back in march and april not be responsible for any type of change but in june and july were entirely responsible? talk about the last year raise in murder it was a complicated story and making certain types ofty arrest it doesn't truly explain why violence shot up so quickly and incredibly when it did.

not quite as satisfying as an answer but in chicago there was 80 percent drop but then the increase of firearms but people carry a lot more guns in may and in the pandemic even before was george floyd then in january and february. caller: i am so relieved somebody is keeping track of these statistics. thank you. i am calling about violence against women. the statistics i have seen show the incredible increase in domestic violence. is anybody keeping track of who is being shot? the violence against women act is being held up in the senate by joni ernst and the

republicans because it has a provision that keeps guns out of the hands of domestic abusers and intimate partners. i think it is really important if we could know, has this anything to do with the pandemic and the violence against women? host: thank you for your call. jeff asher? guest: that is an excellent question. you don't have data now, and we will get some data from the fbi in september when they release their official the to stakes, that it is not something that is particularly well-capped, so we don't have a good understanding of how many murders each year our domestic-related. domestic violence is one of the items i would point to as a logical explanation for why murder is up. basically, abusers and domestic violence victims are together and people cannot get away from each other. it was possible that was one explanation, but we don't have a

ton of evidence to support it or refute it. you probably will not get hard evidence for a little while, if ever. host: a follow on that from dave who tweets, could you ask the guest for stats on violent crime against family members versus the public at large? guest: that is a great question. it would be something i would love to be able to answer, but we probably will not ever get that level of detail. it is unfortunately not something we do a great job of tracking, and it is possible that the fbi is switching to a new data collection method from the srs, and it is possible we will have more insight into the nuggets of crime, the agencies are supposed to switch that that next year, so it will be a little while before we have an

understanding of being able to answer questions with that level of nuance. host: a headline from the hill, rising violent crime poses new challenge for the white house. we will hear from the president about that at 3:30 eastern. we'll keep you posted on our coverage plans. we will go to been from california. caller: good morning. my question is, who is doing all of this crime? guest: i mean, americans are. i don't know that there is inherently a single person doing all of the crime or single group or single thing you can point to that is driving crime in america right now. host: we will hear from tyrone in the nation's capital. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i had a question -- actually, a

few questions. do you guys recognize if there is any sort of biases in the data you may have collected? do you collect data from places like internal affairs, with regards to crimes? also, i'm pretty sure homicides do not just happen with guns. then mass shootings as well. there is a few things, but i will let you. guest: there is certainly inherent biases in the all data, and crime data being no different from that. murder tends to feel like one that is the least biased, because there is a body. things like police manpower can impact whether crimes get reported. we know that rapes and sexual assaults are badly under-reported. we know that auto theft tends to be reported pretty well. we have enough evidence that we

should have some confidence in some crime data, and less confidence in other parts of crime data. to the degree there are biases that is mostly in the collection, especially in measuring offenses. there is a lot of bias in who is getting arrested and when and where and for what crimes, so generally we are not talking about measuring crime, we are talking about offenses being reported by victims. host: jack in minnesota asks this question. is there any connection? guest: not that i am aware. i know that you see in the headlines occasionally, undocumented immigrants will be accused of a murder, but usually there is not a lot of evidence, especially in the most cities, in terms of why murder is

rising. there is no relationship there. in the new orleans i have been tracking murders since 2008 and i am not aware of an undocumented person that was the perpetrator of a single murder here. host: we have a couple of seconds, but what do you expect to hear from the president on this this afternoon? guest: i think this is sort of his first effort to take the reins of this. it has obviously been something we are about 12 months into seeing this really horrific rise, and i guess this is going to be a challenge for him. it may take all four years or eight years of his presidency to bring things down, but i'm guessing that you will start to see more ownership of it. it is hard to see -- to say how effective they will be, but it is certainly better than passing the puck off to cities and letting them try their best on their own. host: jeff asher, cofounder of

the company ah

♪♪ >> defense secretary lloyd austin tells the house armed services committee he supports removing the prosecution of sexual assault in the military chain of command. after reading the final report from independent review commission i'm also testifying joint chiefs of staff mark millie military leaders on capitol hill to talk about the president 2022 budget. this runs about four hours.