Homicides in many of the country’s largest cities are declining, but remain higher than pre-pandemic levels, according to a new report from the Council on Criminal Justice.

In the first half of 2023, murders in 30 large U.S. cities fell 9.4% compared with the same period one year earlier.

What You Need To Know

  • Homicides in 30 large U.S. cities fell 9.4% in the first half of 2023, according to a new report from the Council on Criminal Justice

  • The murder rate remains 24% higher than the first half of 2019, prior to the pandemic

  • The homicide rate began increasing in 2015 and spiked in July 2020

  • In 2021, 78% of homicides were committed with guns

The most likely explanation for this year’s decline “is the pandemic fading to the background of everyday life for most Americans,” said Jeff Asher of AH Datalytics, a member of the council's Crime Trends Working Group.

“The pandemic may not have been the driving factor behind the surge in murder in 2020, but the surge was likely exacerbated by the stresses of the pandemic, lack of government and non-profit intervention programming and historic gun sales that accompanied the pandemic’s onset," he added.

In 2021, 78% of homicides were committed with guns. From 1980 to 1990, firearms were used in 60% of homicides.

The Working Group's chair, John Roman, tied the increase in homicides during COVID to young people being isolated from social supports and being confined in volatile neighborhoods, as well as police staffing declines.  

People aged 15 to 19 years old were three times more likely to be murdered in 2020-2021 than in 1960, with Black males eight times more likely and Black females four times more likely to die by homicide compared with whites. In 2020, Black people were six times more likely to be arrested for homicide than white people.

“COVID-19 exposed the nation to the harms of systemic racism, inequitable policies and decades of economic disinvestment have on our most marginalized communities, specifically majority Black neighborhoods,” Working Group member Delrice Adams said. “Mandated stay-at-home orders led to decreased access to services and support. The lack of resources to communities with pre-existing constraints compounded the distress for our most vulnerable reisdents, who generally experience higher rates of trauma.”

If the decline in homicides continues through the end of this year, “the nation will have experienced one of the largest single-year homicide reductions in the era of modern record keeping,” the group said.