By Joanna Putman
Police1
WASHINGTON — The national homicide rate has fallen nearly 13% since 2022, and local law enforcement agencies are also reporting drops in violent crime, ABC News reported.
The homicide drop is the most dramatic decrease on record with nearly 2,000 less people killed in homicide incidents than in 2022, according to a report by National Crime Analyst Jeff Asher, which was comprised of data from 180 different law enforcement agencies.
Cities stated the 2023 drop in homicides and other violent crimes can be attributed to expanded efforts to prevent crime, according to the report. Community volunteers and officers on foot and bike patrols were listed as means of reducing crime.
“It is historic. It’s the largest one-year decline,” said Asher, who is the co-founder of AH Datalytics and a former crime analyst for the CIA and the New Orleans Police Department. “It’s cities of every size, it’s the suburbs, it’s rural counties, tiny cities, it’s large cities. It’s really a national decline.”
U.S. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco stated that the federal government has acted as a “force multiplier” in assisting local law enforcement to reduce the country’s homicide rate. This has been achieved by identifying and taking the most persistent shooters and violent criminals off the streets.
An ABC News review of preliminary crime data from the 10 largest U.S. cities shows that seven of the municipalities have seen double-digit year-over-year declines in 2023 homicides -- including an 11% drop in New York City, a 16% decrease in Los Angeles and a 13% reduction in Chicago.
Smaller cities have also seen decreases in homicide in 2023, according to the report. New Orleans, which had the highest murder rate in the nation in 2022, has seen a 25% drop in homicides in 2023. Baltimore’s homicide numbers have fallen by 25%, Atlanta’s by 18%, and Miami’s by 15%.
“We’re looking at some numbers that we haven’t seen in close to 60 years in the city of Detroit,” Detroit Police Chief James White told ABC News. “But we’re stopping short of celebrating because certainly we still have a lot of work to do.”
White credited much of Detroit’s crime reduction to regaining public trust and building partnerships with “community violence interrupters,” civilians who operate on the streets to assist the police department in identifying trouble spots and solving crimes.