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Boston Globe
24-07-2025
- Boston Globe
After surge during pandemic, homicides fall significantly
Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up The findings of the council's study through the first six months of this year largely align with other private sources of data that offer clues to national trends about crime. The FBI has typically provided official nationwide crime data once a year. It last released nationwide statistics in September. Advertisement Overall, the council found that homicide rates fell 17 percent in the first half of the year in 30 cities it tracked in that category. But some of the largest cities, ones with historically high murder rates, posted much larger drops, according to the study. Chicago's rate is down 33 percent compared with the first six months of last year, St. Louis has fallen 22 percent in the same period, and Baltimore is down 24 percent. Advertisement Denver, which in 2021 recorded its highest number of homicides since 1981, had the sharpest decline in its homicide rate among the cities in the sample, down 45 percent compared with the same period last year, according to the study. Boston, which did not submit figures on homicides for this report, has also experienced a decline in murders. The Real-Time Crime Index, published by Jeff Asher, a New Orleans-based crime analyst, tracks a much larger number of cities than the council does. That index, which follows more than 400 police agencies, shows that murders are down 20 percent through May, compared with the same period in 2024. Other violent crimes, such as robbery and aggravated assault, are also down significantly. In contrast to the council's findings, Asher's figures, based on his larger sample of cities, show that aggravated assaults are still higher than just before the pandemic. Gun violence overall has also declined. According to an analysis by Asher based on data compiled by the Gun Violence Archive, there are 16.4 percent fewer shooting victims nationally this year through June as compared with the same period last year. In addition, the Major Cities Chiefs Association, an organization of police executives from 69 of the largest cities in the nation, reported double-digit declines in four violent crime categories in most of the cities they represent in the first three months of this year as compared with last year. Homicides and robbery were each down 20 percent, while rape fell 14 percent, and aggravated assault was down 11 percent. Advertisement After surging in 2020 and 2021, homicides started to decline in 2022. But in 2023 they fell at what was then the fastest rate in recorded history, and they have been falling even faster ever since. Even shoplifting, which increased last year as cities struggled to deal with retail theft, has fallen by double digits so far this year, according to the council's analysis, which relied on data from 25 cities on that topic. Shoplifting had become a topic of political debates, especially in California, where voters who were frustrated with seeing so many items in stores locked away approved a ballot measure to roll back a major criminal justice reform law and impose tougher penalties for stealing. Criminologists say it's too early to provide definitive explanations for the whipsaw-like shifts in crime of recent years. Adding to the puzzle, say analysts, is that crime has fallen so sharply despite a surge in gun buying during the pandemic, and despite decreases in staffing levels at police agencies. 'Probably in the most simple form, it's simply that the shock waves of the pandemic that contributed to the spike have largely dissipated,' said Adam Gelb, the CEO of the Council on Criminal Justice. This article originally appeared in
San Francisco Chronicle
03-07-2025
- Politics
- San Francisco Chronicle
California says crime is down. But officials know the data is flawed
It happened again. The California Department of Justice this week published a major report, and a corresponding press release, touting a drop in violent crime across the state. But the data underlying the report is substantially flawed — thanks to a big mistake that the DOJ was made aware of last year after Chronicle reporting, but did not fix. In last year's Crime in California report, the Chronicle found that Oakland had logged an improbably high violent crime spike in 2023, fueled by a reported 138% jump in aggravated assaults — a number that did not match Oakland's own year-end report. After the Chronicle inquired, Oakland police said the anomaly was due to 'human error.' When the newspaper brought the problem to the head of the DOJ, Attorney General Rob Bonta, a spokesperson pinned the blame on Oakland. The office did not issue any correction to the statewide numbers in the report. This year, the state again used the faulty numbers in its report, despite knowing they were incorrect. The office did not respond to questions about why it did not correct the known error in the data. In the report, it pointed users to Oakland's website, saying to 'use caution' in comparing 2023 numbers to any other year. But the state did not heed that advice in its own press release, citing a 6% decrease in violent crime in the state between 2023 and 2024. Had the state corrected the 2023 numbers using the Oakland police data that it linked to, violent crime statewide would have decreased by 2%, according to a Chronicle analysis. The error distracts from what are otherwise promising long-term trends in California crime rates. Even after correcting for the flaw, levels of both reported violent and property crime are well below the historic highs of the 1980s and 90s, and continued to trend downwards in 2024. Homicides across the state have come back down from pandemic-era surges and have continued to decline this year, according to the Real-Time Crime Index, which compiles data from local agencies. San Francisco reported a 60-year low in killings last year. Asked last year whether the state checks to ensure the accuracy of data in its reports, the attorney general's office said staff members ask local police departments about anomalous data if they notice it, but that they do not have the responsibility to do so. 'The onus is on every police department to report accurate data. Our role is to publish a comprehensive report based on what each of the 500+ agencies are responsible for reporting to us,' a spokesperson said in an email last year. 'Any discrepancy is the responsibility of the local agency.' But on the fourth page of the report, the DOJ notes that the role of the Criminal Justice Statistics Center, which compiles the report, is to 'collect, analyze, and report statistical data that provide valid measures of crime, to 'examine these data on an ongoing basis to better describe crime' and to 'promote the responsible presentation and use of crime statistics.' Researchers and advocates rely on the state's crime data reports to analyze trends, measure the impact of policy changes and make criminal justice recommendations. In the press release that came alongside the reports, Bonta's office pointed to them as 'vital' information that can be used to 'support informed policy choices.' Magnus Lofstrom, the criminal justice policy director at the Public Policy Institute of California, said that the flawed report 'is of concern.' But he noted that the DOJ provided several caveats with the data, which included this year's note cautioning people against using 2023 as a comparison. Lofstrom said that, in addition to the Oakland mistake, the number of agencies that reported incomplete data was 'unusually high' in 2023. What that means is that, for every report based on the state data, Lofstrom and his team must manually correct several of the numbers on the individual agency level in its analyses, substituting in estimates based on the averages and shares of crimes in other months.
Indianapolis Star
20-06-2025
- Indianapolis Star
Indianapolis crime: A year over year look at homicide data and how we're doing in 2025
The first half of the year has brought a noticeable trend of several child deaths among homicide numbers, including a 14-year-old found shot dead in the snow, a 2-year-old left alone and neglected inside an apartment, and a 5-year-old choked to death with her father charged in her killing. Each year has its own set of trends, but overall, violence involving guns has remained a constant cause of homicides for the city. According to IndyStar and Indianapolis Metropolitan Police data, however, in the first six months of 2025, there has been a significant dip in year-to-date deaths compared to the past five years. 'This should give our community hope, but we can't do it alone," Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Chief Chris Bailey told IndyStar. "We need our community to continue coming alongside us as we work to make Indianapolis a safer place for everyone. The work continues, and we're not letting up.' Summer officially starts on June 20, and while the warm months usually see more violence in the city, killings are down for the first half of the year compared to the same time last year. Indianapolis is not unique in this, as national trends show violent crime has been down in the first half of 2025, according to the Real-Time Crime Index. Major Cities Chiefs Association data shows homicides this year are down from 2024 in the first three months of the year. While statistics show a downward trend, Bailey said it's not a signal for the department to slow down. Brandon Randall, with Power of Tru Colors, who has worked with at-risk youth and young adults for 18 years, agrees. While there have been success stories, he's seen a few of the kids he's worked with die from violence. "Because the homicide numbers are down, there's a lack of urgency," Randall told IndyStar. "There is still a gun access problem with young people and adults. But I think there are more intentional conversations being had on the root causes of violence. It boils down to trauma, mental health, and poverty." IndyStar's data below captures the year-to-date homicides for the first few months over the past five years. In other news: Is there a serial killer in Indianapolis? What police are saying about 4 bodies found There were 15 homicides in January. Most are shooting deaths, but one woman died from asphyxia after being beaten with a hammer, and a toddler died from exposure due to being neglected. There were 11 homicides in February. Most are shooting deaths, except one woman died from blunt force trauma after being beaten to death. There was also one officer-involved shooting death that occurred. There were 14 homicides in March. Most were shooting deaths, except for one man who died from a stabbing. Summer program for youth: IMPD accepting applications for its weeklong Teen Academy There were 8 homicides in April, and all of them were shooting deaths. There were 12 homicides in May. Most were shooting deaths, except one victim who was stabbed, another who died after being hit by a vehicle, and 5-year-old Zara Arnold, who died from asphyxia after being choked. As of June 20, 2025, at 8 a.m., there have been two homicides in June, and both were shooting deaths. IndyStar is tracking homicide data for 2025
New York Post
03-06-2025
- Business
- New York Post
White House celebrates plummeting murder rates as levels dip below pre-COVID numbers
WASHINGTON — Nationwide murder rates are on course to plummet for the third year in a row, with one prominent analyst saying that 2025 could see the lowest number of per capita killings on record. 'Since President Trump took office, murder rates have plummeted across the entire United States,' White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement on Tuesday. 'American families were promised their communities would be safer and President Trump swiftly delivered by vocally being tough on crime, unequivocally backing law enforcement, and standing firm on violent criminals being held to the fullest extent of the law.' Advertisement According to the FBI, 2014 saw the lowest murder rate dating back to 1960 — with 4.46 killings per 100,000 Americans. In 2023, the most recent year for which FBI statistics are available, the murder rate dropped to 5.75 per 100,000 from a recent high of 6.83 per 100,000 in 2020, a year that saw the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as widespread racial unrest. In 2024, according to the Real-Time Crime Index — a database maintained by AH Datalytics which compiles reports from more than 400 local agencies — the homicide rate dipped again, to 4.97 per 100,000, below the official FBI rate in both 2018 (5.15) and 2019 (5.17). Advertisement In the first three months of this year, the real time index shows, the number of murders has dropped by a further 21.6% from the same period in 2024. '[I]t's fairly clear that a decline in the direction we're currently seeing would safely give 2025 the title of lowest US murder rate ever recorded,' independent analyst Jeff Asher wrote in a May 12 Substack post. 5 Line graph from AH Datalytics showing reported murders nationwide from 2018-2025. Real-Time Crime Index 5 White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt speaks during a press briefing at the White House in Washington, D.C., the United States, on May 29, 2025. Xinhua/Shutterstock Advertisement Trump took office vowing to crack down on crime — especially crime committed by illegal migrants — and celebrate law enforcement officials for putting wrongdoers behind bars. In April, officials lined the White House lawn with 100 mugshots of deported illegal aliens, along with lists of the crimes they were accused of committing. 'Good policy fosters good outcomes,' FBI spokesperson Ben Williamson said Tuesday. 'Under this administration's leadership, our federal law enforcement teams are receiving the tools and support they need to crush violent crime and keep the American people safe, and that's exactly what they're doing. We have much more to do, but let good cops be cops, and the results will follow.' The nationwide decline is being reflected in some of America's largest cities. Advertisement In New York, year-to-date murder rates have dropped 28.2%. The local stats show the city's 112 murders in the first five months of this year reflect a 34.1% drop from the same point in 2023, a 41.4% dip from 2010 — and an eye-popping 85.7% drop from this point in 1993. 5 Trump has stressed that the administration will be tough on crime. Andrew Leyden/NurPhoto/Shutterstock 5 Police at the scene where two men were shot inside the Canal Street NQRW subway station at Broadway in New York, NY around 1 a.m. on January 28, 2023. Christopher Sadowski 5 A woman and a man were found shot to death near or inside 1347 Jefferson Avenue in Bushwick around 7:45 AM on February 11, 2025. Gregory P. Mango Philadelphia, which consistently ranks as among the deadliest cities in America, reported a 14.7% dip in year-to-date murder numbers. The pattern is repeating in Chicago (23% decline year-to-date), Baltimore (24%) and New Orleans (25%).
Vox
24-05-2025
- Politics
- Vox
Something remarkable is happening with violent crime rates in the US
is an editorial director at Vox overseeing the climate, tech, and world teams, and is the editor of Vox's Future Perfect section. He worked at Time magazine for 15 years as a foreign correspondent in Asia, a climate writer, and an international editor, and he wrote a book on existential risk. The astounding drop in violent crime that began in the 1990s and extended through the mid-2010s is one of the most important — and most underappreciated — good news stories of recent memory. That made its reversal during the pandemic so worrying. In the first full year of the pandemic, the FBI tallied 22,134 murders nationwide, up from 16,669 in 2019 — an increase of roughly 34 percent, the sharpest one-year rise in modern crime record-keeping. In 2021, Philadelphia alone recorded a record 562 homicides, while Baltimore experienced a near-record 337 murders. Between 2019 and 2020, the average number of weekly emergency department visits for gunshots increased by 37 percent, and largely stayed high through the following year. By the 2024 election, for the first time in awhile, violent crime was a major political issue in the US. A Pew survey that year found that 58 percent of Americans believed crime should be a top priority for the president and Congress, up from 47 percent in 2021. And yet even as the presidential campaign was unfolding, the violent crime spike of the pandemic had already subsided — and crime rates have kept dropping. The FBI's 2023 crime report found that murder was down nearly 12 percent year over year, and in 2024 it kept falling to roughly 16,700 murders, on par with pre-pandemic levels. The early numbers for 2025 are so promising that Jeff Asher, one of the best independent analysts on crime, recently asked in a piece whether this year could have the lowest murder rate in US history. Related How US drug overdose deaths dropped by record numbers All of which raises two questions: What's driving a decrease in crime every bit as sharp as the pandemic-era increase? And why do so many of us find it so hard to believe? The crime wave crashes We shouldn't jump to conclusions about this year's crime rates based on the early data, especially since we're just now beginning the summer, when violent crime almost always rises. Crime data in the US is also patchy and slow — I can tell you how many soybeans the US raised in March, but I can't tell you how many people have been murdered in the US this year. Related The Supreme Court just got an important police violence case right But what we can tell looks very good. The Real-Time Crime Index, an academic project that collects crime data from more than 380 police agencies covering nearly 100 million people, estimates there were 1,488 murders in the US this year through March, compared to an estimated 1,899 over the same months last year. That's a decrease of nearly 22 percent. Violent crime overall is down by about 11 percent. Motor vehicle theft, which became an epidemic during the pandemic, is down by over 26 percent. Peer down to the local level, and the picture just keeps getting better. In Baltimore, which The Wire made synonymous with violent, drug-related crime, homicides fell to 199 last year, its best showing in over a decade. As of early May, the city had 45 murders, down another third from the same period last year. City emergency rooms that were once full of gunshot victims have gone quiet. How much lower could it go nationally? The record low homicide rate, at least since national records started being kept in 1960, is 4.45 per 100,000 in 2014. So far this year, according to Asher, murder is down in 25 of the 30 cities that reported the most murders in 2023. Asher argues that if the numbers hold, 'a 10 percent or more decline in murder nationally in 2025 would roughly tie 2014 for the lowest murder rate ever recorded.' What's behind the drop? In short: The pandemic led to a huge increase in violent crime, and as the pandemic waned, so did the wave. The closure of schools during the pandemic, especially in already higher-crime cities in the Northeast, meant far more young men — who are statistically more likely to be either perpetrators of violent crime or victims of it — on the streets. The closure of social services left fewer resources for them to draw on; and the sheer stress of a once-in-a-lifetime health catastrophe set everyone on edge. The murder of George Floyd in spring 2020 led to a collapse in community trust in policing, which in turn seemed to lead to less aggressive policing altogether. As the pandemic eased, though, those buffers came back, providing a natural brake on violent crime. But the government, from the national level down to cities, also took direct actions to stem the flood of violence. The White House under President Joe Biden poured hundreds of millions of dollars into community violence interruption programs, which aim to break the cycle of retribution that can lead to homicide. Baltimore's Group Violence Reduction Strategy has brought together community groups and law enforcement to deter the people considered most likely to get involved in gun violence. And the erosion in police forces nationwide that occurred during the pandemic has largely stopped. The situation is far from perfect. Even though Floyd's murder triggered a nationwide reckoning around police violence, recent data shows that police killings kept increasing, in part because fear of crime often stopped momentum around reforms. Here in New York, even as overall crime on the subways has fallen to historical lows, felony assaults on the trains have kept rising, fueling fears of lawlessness. Why can't we believe it? As Memorial Day weekend marks the start of summer, the next few months will tell whether the pandemic was truly just a blip in the long-term reduction in violent crime. But what we can say is most people don't seem to notice the positive trends. An October 2024 poll by Gallup found that 64 percent of Americans believed there was more crime nationwide than the year before, even though by that time in 2024, the post-pandemic crime drop was well under way. But such results aren't surprising. One of the most reliable results in polling is that if you ask Americans whether crime is rising, they'll say yes. Astonishingly, in 23 of 27 national surveys done by Gallup since 1993, Americans reported that they thought crime nationwide was rising — even though most of those surveys were done during the long crime decline. Crime is one of the best examples we have of bad news bias. By definition, a murder is an outlier event that grabs our attention, inevitably leading the nightly local news. Sometimes, as during the pandemic, that bias can match reality. But if we fail to adjust to what is actually happening around us — not just what we think is happening — it won't just make us think our cities are more dangerous than they really are. It'll sap energy for the reforms that can really make a difference. A version of this story originally appeared in the Good News newsletter. Sign up here!
