Still more good news on crime from Major Cities Chiefs Association as we head into final stretch of 2024

I just saw that late last week the Major Cities Chiefs Association released here its crime data from its on “Violent Crimes Survey” based on reports to 69 law enforcement agencies over the first nine months of 2024.  These data continue to show a significant drop in violent crime in 2024 through September as compared to the same months in 2023.  Specifically, these data report over a 17% decline in homicides and a nearly 10% drop in reported aggravated assaults, rapes and robberies.  The homicide numbers matche up closely with the data coming from this AH Datalytics webpage, which shows a cumulative 18% decline in murders across more than 250 US cities mostly reporting through the end of September 2024.

If 2024 concludes on this note, I think it nearly certain that the reported crime declines of 2024 will be historic.  Indeed, it now seem possible that, after a stunning and historic rise in homicides in 2020, the nation may conclude 2024 with a near record low homicide rate.  (Of course, homicides and other crimes could tick up in the last quarter of 2024 and it seems hard to predict what we should expect in 2025.)  And, as I have noted in prior posts, it strikes me as especiallt notable that the 2024 declines in homicide (following big declines also in 2023) come at a time of relatively little use of the death penalty and relatively lower rates of incarceration by modern US standards.  (Though, as I have also stated before, I generally doubt that punishment trends siginficantly or directly account for homicide trends in any direction.)