NYT Reports: In "most" cities, homicides are down from pandemic-era highs.

Context: 644 Cities had firearm homicides rates in 2023 that were higher than pre-pandemic averages, while 600 cities had rates that were lower.

The New York Times is covering the crime and disorder beat more frequently lately. They’ve been publishing articles about urban gun violence and the fentanyl overdose epidemic.

Today, they published this article:

The article, which is mostly about how the issue of crime may impact voter behavior in November, highlights the following crime statistics:

Homicide rates are tumbling from pandemic highs in most cities…But property crime, carjackings and smash-and-grab burglaries are up, adding to a sense of lawlessness, amplified on social media and local online message boards….

Murders — a bellwether for all violent crime — are down about 13 percent nationally from 2022 to 2023. Other serious crimes — sexual assault, robbery and assault — are also settling to their prepandemic levels in all but a handful of cities. Property crimes like theft, especially auto theft and shoplifting, are rising moderately from pandemic lows — and carjackings surged across the country, doubling from 2019 to 2023.

There’s also this quote from Jeff Asher, a prominent crime analyst, who laments:

[It’s] “frustrating to have to keep arguing that the drop in crime is a real thing” when the decline in murders has been accelerating in the first few months of 2024, in some cities at a record-breaking clip.

Asher’s frustration with the public’s meager appreciation for falling murder rates is understandable. He’s an expert with access to crime data that he analyzes in real time and reports on his Substack, Jeff-alytics. But although it’s true that homicide rates have fallen from their pandemic-era highs in some cities, they still aren’t back to rates observed in the years preceding the pandemic in most cities.

My analyses below includes all US Cities with 50,000 or more residents, plus small cities in US-Census designated micropolitan statistical areas. This is over 1300 cities. I find that in 600 cities, the FHR is back down to pre-pandemic averages. Right on! In 643 cities, however, the FHR is still elevated, sometimes by a lot.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of the FHR table below had the rates for Phoenix and Philadelphia swapped. This has since been corrected.

In the table below, I report the average Firearm Homicide Rate (FHR) per 100,000 for the years 2015-2019 versus 2023 in all 1320 cities. Use the interactive chart to explore the data!