WASHINGTON — Homicides across the United States are on track to drop for the third consecutive year in 2024, reaching levels not seen since before the pandemic, according to preliminary data from law enforcement agencies.
Analysts predict a nearly 16% nationwide decline in homicides, alongside a 3.3% drop in overall violent crime, making this year’s decrease the most significant since the FBI began keeping comprehensive crime statistics, ABC News reported.
The trend builds on substantial declines in previous years: a 13% reduction in homicides in 2023, following a 6% decrease in 2022. These decreases come in the wake of a 30% spike in murders between 2019 and 2020, the largest single-year increase in more than a century, according to the report.
“Considering where we were just three or four years ago, we’re basically looking at 5,000 fewer murder victims than in 2020, 2021 and 2022 having occurred in 2024,” said Jeff Asher, a national crime analyst and co-founder of AH Datalytics.
Cities large and small contributed to the decline, with major metropolitan areas like Philadelphia seeing a 40% drop in homicides and other cities such as New Orleans, Washington, D.C., and Memphis reporting decreases of 38%, 29% and 23%, respectively, according to the report. Smaller cities also experienced sharp reductions, with a 19% decline in murders across municipalities with populations under 250,000.
New York City recorded 357 homicides through mid-December, reflecting a 7.3% decrease from 2023 and a 15% drop over the past two years, according to the report. Chicago saw similar progress, with homicides falling 7% from 2023 and 29% since the post-pandemic peak.
The reductions extend beyond violent crime. Property crime also plummeted in 2024, with an 8.6% nationwide decline driven largely by a 21.4% drop in motor vehicle thefts. Analysts attribute the sharp decline in auto thefts to law enforcement crackdowns on methods popularized through social media that targeted specific car models, according to the report.
Attorney General Merrick Garland credited these trends to targeted strategies like the Justice Department’s Violent Crime Reduction Roadmap, which provides resources to help local jurisdictions prevent and respond to gun crimes.
“Over the past two years, we have turned the tide against the violent crime that spiked during the pandemic,” Garland said during a December briefing, adding that the United States is nearing its lowest violent crime rate since 1970.
