WASHINGTON — Violent crime rates in major U.S. cities are continuing to fall from the heights they reached during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new report from the Council on Criminal Justice.
In Virginia, homicides in Richmond, Norfolk and Virginia Beach have declined this year compared with the first half of 2023. However, advocates say there’s still a lot of work to do to control crime, especially gun deaths.
“One is too many for me,” said Charles Crest, a board member for the group Stop the Violence 757. “So, what they’re saying in the numbers – yes, we don’t have 10 anymore, but we still have an astronomical number. Almost week to week we’ll lose someone between the ages of 30 to 15.”
Nationally, the murder rate rose 30% between 2019 and 2020, the largest single-year increase in more than a century. It’s taken until this year for homicides to drop below pandemic levels. The data comes from about 30 cities of various sizes, and also showed drops in robberies, aggravated assaults and domestic-violence cases.
Ernesto Lopez, senior research specialist with the Council on Criminal Justice, said the results are encouraging but limited considering the variations city to city and lack of communities providing accurate numbers.
“Homicide is influenced by a lot of local factors,” he said. “In fact, we know that most violence can be isolated to specific neighborhoods within a city. So it’s essential for leaders to take time to analyze and fully understand local crime patterns while having a view towards more national trends.”
Motor vehicle theft has risen recently in Richmond, but dropped in Norfolk and Virginia Beach. In Washington, D.C., homicides dropped in the past year but remain above 2019 levels.
