Following up yesterday’s Taki’s magazine column on “The Geography of Homicide,” from the CDC WONDER database of causes of death, here are Hispanic homicide death rates over 2018-2021, from lows in Virginia, New Jersey, Florida and New York to highs in New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee

The rise of strong policing in New York City appears to have had a salutary effect on Puerto Rican homicide rates (outside of Pennsylvania).

And here are Hispanic homicide rates relative to white rates:

In contrast, on this map, Puerto Rican areas look pretty bad due to how well-behaved whites are in the northeast.

So I think what’s going on is that back in the 1990s, when you’d look at homicide rates among what were then the three main flavors of Hispanics—Mexicans, Cubans, and Puerto Ricans—you’d see Cubans relatively low, Mexicans medium, and Puerto Ricans high.

But since the 1990s, cops in the Northeast have done a pretty good job of bringing down the homicide rate for everybody, so the absolute rate among Puerto Ricans has fallen. In 1990, there were a huge number of killings in New York City, so there were a lot of killings of Puerto Ricans. But now there are not so many murders in New York City. On the other hand, relative to their neighbors, the Puerto Rican rate is still pretty high.

Another factor is that other Hispanics besides Puerto Ricans have moved into the Northeast, so it’s more complicated now.