Several measures are pointing at a large decline in murder and gun violence nationally in 2024. Murder totals are down 18.5 percent in more than 260 cities with available data for 2024 compared to the same timeframe in 2023, writes analyst Jeff Asher on Substack. Murder was down 20.5 percent in the sample of over 175 cities back then and it’s down 19.1 percent using those same cities now, so the level of decline has come down but just a bit in the last two months. It's too early to say just how much murder will decline in 2024, but it’s late enough in the year with a large enough sample to say that murder will likely fall considerably and perhaps historically so this year after a large decline in 2023.
A sample of this size is fairly good at predicting the direction and scope of a crime change nationally even at this point of the year. Something could happen to change the national trend, but it would just be outside of the historical norm. The FBI hasn't released data on the first quarter of 2024. This assessment comes from non-FBI data, including shooting data from 30 cities that publish it, and national data on shootings from the Gun Violence Archive. Murder is down over 40 percent in Boston, Fort Worth, Columbus, Seattle, New Orleans, Baltimore, and Philadelphia, among others. There are 20 cities in the sample with a double-digit decrease in murders compared to 3 cities with a double-digit increase (Charlotte, Baton Rouge, and Savannah). Murder is down or even in 41 of the 51 cities that reported at least 20 or more murders at this point in 2023. Among the 30 cities with available shooting data, shootings are down in 26. Shootings are down quite a bit in cities where murders also are down, including New Orleans, Boston and Philadelphia.
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