In the District of Columbia, there is an interesting trend emerging. While the homicide rates have indeed been increasing, the level of violent crime has been decreasing…but how can that be? Surely more violent crime would lead to more homicides, right? Not necessarily, and in DC, quite the opposite it seems! The reason for this is something called “lethality”.
 
People who get shot don’t always die. Many survivors of actual gun shot wounds live on, some uninterrupted by the tragedy that befell them. Of course, many instances occur in which people have physical ailments for the rest of their lives due to the wounds inflicted upon them. A bullet in the spine will likely leave a person paralyzed. A bullet in the brain may lead to brain damage. But without the victim dying, it is not a homicide, but a violent assault and attempted homicide instead.
 
If you divide the homicide rate by the total incident rate, you get a measure of the “lethality” of the incidents. That is, the probability that a gun related violent assault will lead to death. This metric has been unusually high in DC over the past year. The equation would look something like this:
 
Lethality = Homicides/Overall Assault with a dangerous weapon
              = Homicides/(Homicides + Assault with a dangerous weapon)
 
Comparing the statistics from 2017 and 2018 we see an interesting change.

Recently, Kenny Barnes Sr. was featured in an emotionally charged article in the Washington City Paper about the parents of gun violence victims,

[https://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/news/article/21043591/as-homicides-continue-to-rise-in-dc-parents-of-gun-violence-victims-reflect-on-open-wounds]

(Special thanks to Candace Montague for her reporting and Darrow Montgomery for his photography).

After his son, Kenny Barnes Jr. was shot and killed at his U Street Boutique in Northwest DC, Barnes Sr took his formal education in Psychology to use by trying to put an end to gun violence. He felt that the way to find the solution was to “Reach Out to Others Together” in order to find the ROOT Causes of the problem. Of the things he discovered on his 16 years journey into activism is that uplifting the local community and empowering stakeholders to feel a sense of cooperation, justice, and fairness, is essential in maintaining the health of the public. His past as led him to his definition of the present, that there is clearly a path to peace in the streets and in our schools, and it comes from the same warmth of unity that intrinsically binds us all.
 
Currently, Mr. Barnes and myself are working with The Collaborative to Improve Youth/Police Relations Through Prevention Science, a project combining one of the top public health research institutions in George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health and one of the largest professional law enforcement groups in National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE) to study the interactions between police and youth. This research has a chance to clarify the problem of inner-city violence in the context of the relationships between law enforcement and the communities they serve. This represents Kenny Barnes Sr. current state of action, with the focal point of the study being Wards 7 and 8, where 65% of the homicides in Washington DC occurred in the last year, 2018.  
 
In the future, the Mr. Barnes and I would like to expand the project into the other Wards (and other cities) and find ways of communicating the central message of getting to the ROOT Causes of the scourge of violence that has risen in major east coast cities since 2015. We hope this future will see serious progress in the realm of instituting a public health model to combat gun violence, as it has worked well in cities like Chicago and Glasgow. When people worked together to solve problems, we all win!

The act of killing oneself, it appears, has become more American than ever, with people from the US committing the act year over year at higher rates, while global rates are declining. According to an article by The Economist, global suicide rates have declined 29% since the year 2000. Most notably, countries like China and India have seen fewer young women kill themselves, as well as in Russia, where middle-aged and older men are committing the act at a much lower rate. During the same time period, suicide rates in the United States have risen 18%.
                                                        
            https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2018/11/30/why-the-global-suicide-rate-is-falling
 
How odd is it that the international rates would fall at the same time as the national rate increases? It is much like homicides in Baltimore or Washington DC in that respect, where the local rates are increasing while the national rates are decreasing. These measures are extremely important when it comes to learning about what causes suicide and what can be done in the future to stop it from happening.
 
A quick look at some statistics tells us why and how we can focus in on the problem to solve it. Firstly, it is a male-dominated action, with men dying at a rate of almost 4 times that of women. However, more women attempt suicide than men by about 1.2 times. Many factors are associated with self-injury in general, including traumatic stress and poor economic conditions. This Wikipedia article gives a good break-down of the numbers in the US:
 
                                            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_the_United_States
 
The second important set of statistics involves Veterans of the US military, those brave men and women who fight to protect American interests overseas seem to be killing themselves at an ever-higher rate. The reasons are complex, but essentially boil down to this – as service-members witness atrocities, they develop traumatic stress, which, if left unattended, can persuade the Veteran to commit acts of self-destruction.
 
                                        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_veteran_suicide
 
It is interesting to note that the gender-gap for suicide diminishes with military service. Possibly because the success rates are higher for women who have more access to and knowledge of fire-arms.
 
It is the first day of 2019. A New Year. Let us take stock on how important and joyful life is. Let us take aim at preventing suicide. Let stopping suicide be an American Resolution. To learn more or donate to the cause, please visit the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention website:
 
                                                                               https://afsp.org/