Latest CCJ accounting covers “Crime Trends in U.S. Cities: Mid-Year 2024 Update”
The Council on Criminal Justice (CCJ) today released its latest accoutning of recent crime trends through this new report titled “Crime Trends in U.S. Cities: Mid-Year 2024 Update.” Here are the encouraging essentials from the the report’s “Overview”:
This study updates and supplements previous U.S. crime trends reports by the Council on Criminal Justice (CCJ) with additional data through June 2024. It examines monthly crime rates for 12 violent, property, and drug offenses in 39 American cities that have consistently reported monthly data over the past six years. The 39 cities are not necessarily representative of all jurisdictions in the United States. Not all cities reported data for each offense…; trends in offenses with fewer reporting cities should be viewed with caution. In addition, the data collected for this report are subject to revision by local jurisdictions.
Eleven of the 12 offenses covered in this report were lower in the first half of 2024 than in the first half of 2023.
Looking at violent offenses, the number of homicides in the 29 study cities providing data for that crime was 13% lower — 319 fewer homicides — during the first half of 2024 than in the first half of 2023. There were 7% fewer reported aggravated assaults and 18% fewer gun assaults in the first half of 2024 than during the same period in 2023. Reported carjacking incidents fell by 26% while robberies and domestic violence incidents declined by 6% and 2%, respectively.
Motor vehicle theft, a crime that has been on the rise since the summer of 2020, continued its upward trajectory through 2023. That trend reversed in the first half of 2024, however, as there were 18% fewer motor vehicle thefts compared to the first half of 2023.
Reports of residential burglaries (-14%), nonresidential burglaries (-10%), larcenies (-6%), and drug offenses (-2%) all decreased in the first half of 2024 compared to the first half of 2023. But rates of reported shoplifting, a crime that has received extensive attention from the media and policymakers, increased by 24% over the same period.
Overall, most violent crimes are at or below levels seen in 2019, the year prior to the onset of the COVID pandemic and racial justice protests of 2020. There were 2% fewer homicides during the first half of 2024 than during the first half of 2019 and 15% fewer robberies. Aggravated assaults and domestic violence incidents also are below levels seen five years ago. Gun assaults were 1% higher during the first half of 2024 than during the first half of 2019, and carjacking, a crime that is relatively uncommon but began to spike shortly after the onset of the pandemic, was 68% higher.
Property crime trends have been mixed over the last five years. There were fewer residential burglaries and larcenies but more nonresidential burglaries in the first half of 2024 than during the same period five years earlier. Motor vehicle thefts more than doubled during the timeframe, while shoplifting is 10% higher. Drug offenses remain below 2019 levels.
It is encouraging that rates of violent and property crime are trending in the right direction and are generally below historic peaks seen in the early 1990s, but many cities are still experiencing disturbingly high levels of homicide and motor vehicle theft. To achieve long-term reductions, local, state, and federal governments, along with communities and industries, must adopt evidence-based crime prevention efforts. Additionally, improvements to the nation’s crime data infrastructure are essential to better equip policymakers with timely, accurate, and usable data needed to effectively address community violence and other crime.