Get ready for a violent American summer according to crime experts

Experts are worried that criminal activity might spike across the country as the US comes out of their pandemic stupor.

Joseph Giacalone is an adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He told Fox News that urban areas and US cities are seeing higher crime rates.

"It’s not getting any better. Let's put it this way: New York City is already ahead of last year's pace, but last year, the homicides and shootings really started spiking at the end of May and into June. So that will be the real tale of the tape, so to speak, to see what's happening over there."

The outlet says murders and shootings were up by a considerable margin in NYC, compared to the same time period last year. New York City in particular faced concerns about higher crime rates since the start of 2021. When it comes to anti-Asian hate crimes in particular, today it was announced that the NYC’s Hate Crimes Task Force would be investigating an assault against a 15-year-old Asian boy at a playground.

Last week, San Francisco’s Mayor went forward defunding millions of dollars from the city’s police and redirected that money towards black businesses. This in spite of the crime rates for that area rising in certain metrics.

In places like Chicago it’s the same sort of deal. Murder up by 56%, and shooting up by 40% compared to the same time period last year.  Mayor Lightfoot isn’t being seen favorably by the public as they booed her appearance at a baseball game early last month. When it comes to policy decisions, the officer-involved shooting of Adam Toledo highlighted Lightfoot’s limitations on police. At that time the Mayor was considering a change where city police would be required to get approval from supervisors, before they could chase suspects on foot.

John Roman (senior fellow at University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center) predicted at the beginning of the year that Summer 2021 would be more violent than previous years. He pins the anarchy and mayhem of anti-police protests as the inciting factor.