New Orleans's homicide rate is on a downward trend.
Through June, New Orleans has had 54 homicides--including the January 1 terror attack. That's the fewest homicides in the city through the first six months of the year since 1970.
"(It's) a dramatic reduction of murders so far this year and, really, over the last year-and-a-half to two years," AH Datalytics founder Jeff Asher said.
Asher says if you start the murder count on January 2, the city has had 40 homicides this year. By comparison, New Orleans had 40 homicides in June of 2022 alone. Asher says New Orleans's murder reduction mirrors what's happening in other major cities across the country. That leads him to believe federal government initiatives played a big role in the dip.
"We've got this incredible amount of spending on communities, not necessarily just on anti-violence programs, but community support--ARPA money coming in (and) Inflation Reduction Act money coming in," Asher said.
"There's something like a 90-percent increase in construction from state and local governments on neighborhood centers and social centers," Asher adds. "There's a big increase in highway and street construction that added street lighting, which adds street lighting, which tends to help reduce violent crime. We know that's a connection there. You've got spending on police. You have fewer officers, but maybe the officers you have are more efficient."
Asher is quick to note that New Orleans has much more work to do.
"This is not a 'we solved it' moment, but the trends are favorable, and we should do our best to figure out why and what we can do to extend these trends," Asher said.
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