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July 5, 2024
Still more heat and less homicides in the United States as 2024 enters its second half
Though much of the US continues to experience high tempertures as we head into the second half of 2024, everyone should be heartened that the rising temperatures have not dramatically cooled the extraordinary downward homicide trend in the United States. As readers may recall from prior posts, 2023 brought a considerable (perhaps historic) decline in homicides in the US compared to 2022 (which saw a small decline in homicides after very significant increases in homicides throughout the US in 2020 and 2021). My check today at the latest AH Datalytics' collection of homicide data for 2024 from 250+ US cities shows now an 17.8% cumulative decline(!) in murders across the nation's cities through roughly first half of 2024.
I have said before that I doubt criminologists and others have a clear and certain story for why we are seeing this historic homicide declines, but I will continue to note these trends whie hoping they continue. And, as one who focuses on sentencing law and practice, I will keep noting, as I did in a prior post, that the 2023 and 2024 declines in homicide come at a time of relatively low use of the death penalty and relatively lower rates of incarceration by US standards.
As I always stress in this posts, these remarkable homicide trends could change in the weeks and months and years ahead. But, for now, it is great to see 2024 remains on pace to break whatever yearly homicide reduction records were set in 2023. And, if these trends somehow continue, many parts of the US might soon reach historic per capital lows in homicides.
July 5, 2024 at 05:39 PM | Permalink
Comments
Glad to see it currently below 2019 levels. This is my benchmark for a meaningful decline (as opposed to the end of a hump).
Posted by: William Jockusch | Jul 5, 2024 8:21:01 PM
great news!! And more evidence for the argument that the fewer executions, the fewer the murders.
Posted by: anon | Jul 5, 2024 8:35:35 PM
anon --
"And more evidence for the argument that the fewer executions, the fewer the murders."
Between 1967 and 1977, we had zero executions in this country. So I guess murders went way down, right?
In 1967, we had 12,240 murders. In 1977, we had 19,120. That's an increase of more than 50%.
Still, if heroes like Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who blew the guts out of an eight year-old child, had been around then, they would have been spared, and the world would have been a better place -- or so Sister Perjean would be telling us.
The idea that the death penalty is never deserved, or that we can never know for sure if the lovely Mr. X did the deed, is not merely misguided but preposterous. This is why, for 50 years, a majority of the public (including our host Doug Berman) opposes DP abolition.
Posted by: Bill Otis | Jul 5, 2024 9:16:56 PM
Here in Lexington, Kentucky, the downward trend in homicides continues. To date (thru July 5), we have had just 7 homicides, compared with 10 by this date in 2023. A few more weeks into July may reveal even more, since Lexington had 4 homicides in July 2023, but we have not yet had any homicides in July 2024. The huge reduction in homicides here came from a decline to 24 in 2023, from 44 in 2022 (the all-time record). In part, Lexington's success may be attributed to a program called "One Lexington" [headed by Devine Carama, who is also a hip-hop singer], where the Director and volunteers seek to work with high-risk people [especially poor young black men who have no father figure] to head off gun violence before it happens. This grass roots program seems to have had remarkable success and is worthy of study and copying by other cities.
Posted by: Jim Gormley | Jul 5, 2024 9:23:39 PM
Many possible reasons come to mind. Just to name a few:
-- With the proliferation of digital devices and license plate readers, plus the new ability to use familial DNA to find a murderer from a tiny sample, it is harder than ever to get away with murder.
-- The ability of hospitals to save gunshot victims is improving.
-- Drug overdose deaths have been skyrocketing, partly due to fentanyl. Presumably a lot of overdose victims were in the drug world and therefore at elevated risk of death by homicide.
-- Marijuana legalization means less marijuana smuggling and therefore less homicide.
I have no idea if the decline is due to one of these, a combination, or to something else entirely.
Posted by: William Jockusch | Jul 5, 2024 10:14:43 PM
William, many of your suggested reasons would seem to have been mostly true in 2020 and 2021 when we saw a huge homicides spike. I think COVID era dyanmics better fit the timeline of the data, as John Roman has explained: https://johnkroman.substack.com/p/why-did-crime-decline-in-2023
That said, tha fact that many cities are now approaching record low homicide rates, not just a return to 2018/2019 levels, suggests additional factors such as some you mention may be also contributing to the good news.
Posted by: Doug B | Jul 6, 2024 8:42:57 AM
Doug, I think we are in agreement. I think a major part of the decline is due to the end of the post-Covid spike. But as you note, that is not a good explanation for the drop below 2019 levels.
Posted by: William Jockusch | Jul 6, 2024 1:06:20 PM
I like the positive comments on this post. I think the decline in homicides is due to multiple factors:
1. The country "opened" back up in 2022 after nearly two years in lockdown.
2.The U.S. population continues to age, and people are less likely to commit crimes as they age.
3. Obesity. It may sound strange, but America is an unhealthy nation and folks are less likely to run around committing homicides when they can't get around.
4. Video games/social media. This is a mixed bag as beefs do start online. However, people are less likely to be out roaming the streets when they're playing video games.
Posted by: Anon | Jul 7, 2024 1:41:08 AM
Anon --
Does the recitation of accurate numbers showing a massive increase in murder when we had no executions count as a positive comment? I always thought telling the truth was positive. Is that wrong?
Posted by: Bill Otis | Jul 7, 2024 7:23:44 PM
Is the only fair conclusion from the statistics cited by the commentators above that the murder rate during any given period of time is entirely independent of the rate of capital executions during that same period?
Posted by: anon12 | Jul 7, 2024 8:17:17 PM
"fewer" no "less".
Posted by: federalist | Jul 8, 2024 10:40:48 AM
