This study is the thirteenth in a series of reports for CCJ exploring crime changes since the emergence of the coronavirus pandemic and establishment of the Council’s National Commission on COVID-19 and Criminal Justice. Updating the earlier analyses, this study reveals both increases and decreases in crime rates in a sample of U.S. cities through June 2024.
Overall, the findings show an encouraging trend, with levels of 11 of the 12 crimes covered in the report lower in the first half of 2024 than in 2023. Looking over a longer period, the analysis suggests that most offenses in the sample cities are returning to 2019 levels, though some are not. Homicide, the most serious of the crimes, decreased across the sample through the first half of the year, but many cities continue to lose lives at rates that exceed 2019 levels. Aggravated and gun assaults appear to have receded to pre-pandemic levels. Robbery, another serious violent offense, is down 6% at mid-year compared to the same point in 2023, and is 15% below 2019 levels. But rates of carjacking, while down 26% so far this year, remain 68% higher than rates in 2019.
While the homicide trends are encouraging, fatal and non-fatal violence continue to warrant significant attention from policymakers. Even if the homicide rate were to fall back to pre-pandemic levels, the 2019 level (5.0 per 100,000 U.S. residents) was 15% higher than the 2014 rate (4.4 per 100,000), which was the lowest since World War II. While a 5.0 per 100,000 homicide rate is roughly half the modern peak of 9.8 recorded in 1991, such progress is of little consolation to those who lose loved ones to violence. The United States must not accept crime levels that kill and wound thousands of people each year, especially given advancements in our knowledge about what works to prevent and respond to violence. CCJ’s Violent Crime Working Group produced a menu of such strategies in its Ten Essential Actions report, which served as the foundation of the Violent Crime Reduction Roadmap published in December 2023 by the Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs.
As for property crimes, patterns are shifting for two offenses that have drawn considerable attention from the media and policymakers: motor vehicle theft and shoplifting. Motor vehicle theft, a crime that has stood out because of its striking upward trajectory, is now trending downward. Still, rates remain well above pre-2020 levels, and vehicle theft merits special attention because stolen cars are often used in the commission of a robbery, drive-by shooting, or other violent offense. Shoplifting, especially “smash-and-grab” episodes caught on video, has reshaped the look and feel of retail outlets and prompted a wave of initiatives—some with multi-million dollar budgets—in multiple jurisdictions in the past year. Mid-year data from the 23 sample cities included in this report show a significant increase (24%) in incidents over the first half of 2023, but more investigation is needed to untangle what’s driving the trend and discern how much it may be due to a rise in actual shoplifting or a rise in the rates at which retailers are reporting incidents to law enforcement.
This study provides up-to-date U.S. crime trends for fewer than 40 cities—a sample limited to large and medium jurisdictions that have consistently reported monthly data over the past six years. While it provides key analyses to advance understanding of current trends, it is not an adequate substitute for timely, accurate, and complete crime data on a much larger scale. In April 2023, the Council on Criminal Justice convened a panel of expert producers and consumers of crime data, the Crime Trends Working Group, to explore changing crime patterns and propose ways to improve the country’s crime data infrastructure. The Working Group’s deliberations produced consensus on multiple areas for urgent action by federal, state, and local agencies, recommendations that were published in June 2024 and can be found here.
