PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Violent crime dropped by 15% nationwide in the first three months of the year compared to the same period last year, according to statistics from the FBI released on June 10. City police officials are cautiously optimistic. Philadelphia is one of the big cities seeing signs of similar reductions, especially in rates of gun violence.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland calls the trend “historic,” though about ⅕ of American police departments did not report numbers.
The FBI says, across the 80% of police departments nationwide that did report their statistics, murder was down 26%; aggravated assaults were down 12.5%; robberies were down 17.8%, reported sexual assaults were down 26%, and reported property crimes were down 15%, according to the FBI.
Criminologist and retired New York Police Department Sgt. Joe Giacalone says the news looks good, but summer months can sometimes bring more violence.
“It’s a confluence of things you are dealing with, from a law enforcement perspective. The summer is something that the cops fear, especially now in light that there are so fewer cops nationwide than there were just a few years ago,” Giacalone said.
“The warm weather brings out more potential victims, so you’ll see street robberies going up, you will see grand larcenies going up, like taking property from a person, and of course you will see the violence too — the homicides, the shootings and sexual assaults — because people are going out at night.”
Philadelphia Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel has said he’s cautiously optimistic about the numbers, but has added there’s a long road ahead.
A study from the Center for American Progress found Philadelphia had a 16%
reduction in gun violence, compared to the nationwide drop of 13%. Homicides in the city are down by about 35% from this time last year. Police say there have been 120 homicide victims in the city so far this year, compared to a few years ago when there were 100 more victims in the same amount of time.