LETTER FROM SAN FRANCISCO
The majority of Americans won't believe it, but official statistics confirm that crime is actually falling in the United States. It's a "historic" drop, according to criminologist Jeff Asher. Such information should reassure citizens on the threshold of a crucial election year, but this does not seem to be the case. Instead, the national perception is that violence is on the rise; all other opinions are dismissed.
According to a study by AH Datalytics, a firm co-founded by Asher, homicides fell by a record amount in 2023. The analysts worked from preliminary statistics obtained from 177 major cities, which show the annual number of homicides (around 18,450) to be down by almost 13%. Typically, variations are 2% to 3% from one year to the next, the specialist pointed out. The biggest drop (9%) was recorded in 1996. An exceptional rise (30%) followed the 2020 Covid-19 lockdown. This year, while the drop is to be welcomed, Asher said that crime is not quite back to pre-pandemic levels.
With the exception of Memphis and Washington, DC – the country's capital, which, for unexplained reasons, saw the highest number of homicides in 20 years (272) – most major cities reported sharply downward statistics: -19% in Philadelphia, -18% in Atlanta, -16% in Los Angeles, -12% in Chicago, -11% in New York City. The drop reached -25% in New Orleans, which ranked first for crime rate in 2022, as well as in Baltimore, where the number of homicides fell below 300 for the first time since 2015.
Rates for Other types of crime – such as rape, burglary and armed robbery – are compiled by the FBI from figures voluntarily reported by 14,000 of the country's approximately 18,000 law enforcement agencies. According to data published in December by the FBI, covering the period from January 1 to September 30, these forms of crime also fell: -6.3% for burglary and property crime, the lowest level since 1961. "This is a historically large decrease," said Asher on congressional channel C-SPAN. "Big cities, small cities, suburban counties, rural counties, pretty much everywhere is seeing declines." There is one notable exception: Car thefts are on the rise. Experts have attributed this phenomenon to the ease of stealing certain models (Kia, Hyundai) sold without immobilizing anti-theft devices, as described on TikTok since July 2022.
What explains the drop in homicides? One hypothesis is the deployment of community policing, thanks to federal funding. Detroit, for example, has recruited "violence interrupters" to assist police in problem neighborhoods. San Francisco, for its part, has benefited from its partnership with the nonprofit organization Urban Alchemy, which employs 225 formerly incarcerated people to patrol downtown streets (unarmed). A study by Professor Forrest Stuart of Stanford University's Ethnography Lab showed a 52% drop in crime – and an 80% drop in drug trafficking – when "ambassadors" specializing in conflict resolution were stationed on the sidewalks.
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