Hispanics made a lot of progress during the Tough on Crime Era of the early 1990s up through Ferguson in 2014. But the slovenly 2020s have revealed some worrisome trends about this giant and fast-growing population.
CDC WONDER data on homicides and traffic accident deaths have now been released through the end of 2022. Weekly totals are available for 2018-2022. Here are raw motor vehicle accident death totals (not rates) for blacks vs. Hispanics:
There are about 50% more Hispanics than blacks in the U.S. lately, so during the first period (1/1/2018 to 3/14/2020), in which both blacks and Hispanics averaged 118 road deaths per week, was actually a period in which the Hispanic fatality rate on the roads was only about 2/3rds as bad per capita as the black rate.
During the COVID/pre–George Floyd period of 3/15/2020 to 5/23/2020, Hispanic road deaths went down while black road deaths went up slightly. Then in June 2020, the prime month of the Mostly Peaceful Protests, black traffic fatalities hit peaks. Hispanic deaths shot upward, too, but lagged black deaths through the first half of the 2021. By 2022, Hispanics were routinely dying more on the streets and highways (at least in raw terms, not adjusted for per capita).
All in all, whites are dying per week 13% more on the road in the George Floyd Era than in the Good Old Days before COVID, while blacks are dying 36% more and Hispanics 33% more. The black trend is at least moving in the right direction, but Hispanics got worse over the latter part of 2021 and 2022.
Here are weekly raw homicide victimizations (not per capita):
This graph is dominated by the black homicide death line, so let’s leave blacks out:
White homicide deaths per week are 15% higher than in the pre-COVID era, but Hispanics are up 42%.
