Homicides in major cities decreased last year compared to 2023, according to studies. One is from the Council on Criminal Justice (CCJ) and the other is from the Major Cities Chiefs Association (MCCA).
CCJ’s study “examines yearly and monthly rates of reported crime for 13 violent, property, and drug offenses in 40 American cities that have consistently reported monthly data over the past six years,” said the group.
Data for 2024 showed that the number of homicides in the 29 study cities providing data for that crime was 16% lower than in 2023, representing 631 fewer homicides. Per the most recent U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, from 2022, there were nearly 25,000 homicides nationwide that year. Other types of violent crime, including aggravated assaults, gun assaults, sexual assaults, domestic violence incidents and carjackings, also decreased in 2024, based on the CCJ data.
According to the MCCA survey of 69 reporting law enforcement agencies, homicides were also down in 2024 compared to 2023. It recorded 6,520 homicides across the jurisdictions last year, compared to 7,797 the previous year. While the New York City Police Department was not included, Chicago and Los Angeles were.
MCCA’s survey found that Chicago reported the most homicides out of the participating agencies at 574, though that number was down from 620 in 2023. Municipalities where homicides increased were: Arlington, Texas; the Charlotte-Mecklenburg area in North Carolina; Cincinnati, Ohio; DeKalb County, Ga.; Honolulu, Hawaii; Long Beach, Calif.; Louisville, Ky.; Minneapolis, Minn.; Nassau County, N.Y.; Oklahoma City, Okla.; Sacramento, Calif.; St. Louis, Mo.; and Tucson, Ariz.
A January press release from the New York City Police Department said that homicides in the nation’s largest city were also down last year. Its data included 377 murders reported in 2024, down from 391 in 2023, a 3.6% decrease.
CCJ’s data shows that the average homicide rate for cities across the U.S. increased by 10% from 2018 to 2019, then increased another 26% from 2019 to 2020 and continued to increase into 2021. Then, it dropped 7% in 2022 and continued to drop in 2023 and 2024. Homicide rates were at a historic low in 2014 and spiked in 2015.
“Multiple developments could explain the rise and subsequent fall of homicide rates, but identifying decisive factors with certainty is challenging, largely because much of the research published on crime during this period has described trends but has not directly measured or tested possible contributing factors,” said the CCJ. “Nevertheless, pandemic-related changes in people’s daily activities and emotional and economic stress levels, changes in police practices, a rupture of public trust in law enforcement, and the suspension or reduction of social supports and programs are among the theories offered by crime scholars.”