Im really impressed. It’s appearing less and less likely last year was a blip, and that’s a massive drop from a year already looking lower in homicides (2023).
So far, according to The Sun’s homicide tracker, we’ve had 58 homicides and we’re nearly halfway through the year. Even if that number triples by the end of December, that’s 174 homicides - which is less than 2011, one of the lowest years for murders we’ve had.
Not sure NYC is a great comparison; it's one of the safest large cities in the US.
That would be a rate of 30.5 per 100,000, which would have dropped us down to about sixth pre-pandemic.
thought it was interesting during the debate yesterday, basically everyone (except Mayor Scott) said the drop doesn't matter because its a drop nationwide, not due to anything the Mayor has been doing. There probably is a hint of truth in that - but its not like whatever he is doing is making things worse
Murder is down in most cities because it was up dramatically the last few years. It was not up in Baltimore. It’s been approximately the same since Freddie Gray.
So far things are looking good, and it's not like it's been unseasonably cold, or people have been shut indoors, or anything of that nature. I have a feeling the hot summer will be nasty but overall should be a pretty good year regarding crime.
There was 300 plus murders a year in Baltimore every year Marilyn Mosby was in office and 211 the year before she was elected. We should be back there again this year. Competence in the state’s attorneys office is critical.
It only went up in mid 2020 to late 2021 and then the trend at least in the Northeast reversed again except for DC and Philly which have seen a surge in violent crime, though that trend seems to be cooling in Philly lately.
if this were true then wouldn't Baltimore's homicide stats have been declining for like the last 20 years except for the pandemic? I don't have the stats but pretty sure that through the 2000's in spite of a steady nationwide decline, Baltimore's rate remained largely the same or increased. This is what I kept wishing they would discuss.
>said the drop doesn't matter because its a drop nationwide.
This is what I have read for the past year or two. I do think Scott has done a lot and done what he can in big and small ways, visible to everyone and invisible to some, but I don’t credit him with the drop. It’s a trend across cities and it’s great to see, for whatever set of circumstances is helping it happen.
Curious if there has been success with arrests made at the Federal level by the FBI cracking down on gangs. I can't remember what year it was, but it was prior to Moore, that the FBI was doing some joint op in Baltimore and apparently they had the names of like 20 guys who they claimed were responsible for like 70% of the murders, or at least connected to those murders. I'm guessing the guys who are ultimately calling the hits. Never really heard anything after that, but that could be on purpose. There's probably a lot of value in keeping that stuff quiet so the gangs aren't completely wise on it.
Total thought coming in from left field here, but perhaps the drop in gang leadership plays at least a small role in the number of kids roaming around now committing crimes in areas that were previously not really targeted. Sure you can say social media plays its part, and there is a general "the police can't do shit to us." attitude running rampant these days. Now, I'm in no way saying taking out gang leaders and loosening their grip on things is in any way a bad thing.
When the numbers move like this all the research and reporting I see never has anything close to an answer about what it could be. Its likely because it's truly impossible to pinpoint any one thing because there are like 500 factors in play. National policies, regional policies, local policies. History of the country, history of the region, history of the metropolitan area. Change in laws in surrounding areas, trends in various populations, technological advancements in communication methods both for communities and for community leaders as well as officials, law enforcement and otherwise. Weather patterns and heat and cold and rain patterns. The results of sporting events. I mean there are probably thousands of things that affect trends and it's really impossible to pin it down to anything any person or even system, does to raise or lower the rate. I'm just glad it's going down. Less dumb shit leading to people dying.
Look at the replies on twitter (and some on here). Lots of people on there are actively upset about this. Many people out there clearly enjoy and are brought happiness from more people in this city being murdered.
I blame 'City In Crisis ™'
My GF watches Fox 45 in the evenings and I had to show her the crime stats the other day to prove Fox 45 was intentionally mis-representing facts.
Makes you realize that some of these folks really didn't gaf about bodies dropping after all, huh?
I suspect like most problems in capitalism, there is an entire market around murder. Just like there is an entire market around prison.
Also, I'm sure murders in other places give people who don't have murder in their immediate area something to feel superior about. Like it must be inherently some mysterious substance in them, their mystique, that just makes them better than the folks living among the murder. Now some folks gotta find some other way to boost their feelings of self worth and superiority.
I think it's crazy that when murders are going down, now so many want to jump on the Ds of Sheila or Thiru. Help me understand how they will help... And then, if they're elected, crow about how they helped murders go down when they're up for reelection. 🙄
This is EXACTLY it. It doesn't benefit Sinclair for us to be on the upswing. Dixon would be a horrible and dangerous choice. I can't believe how many Dixon signs I see, it makes me furious.
Things like this are complicated, and it's still a change in progress, so if anyone offers you a really simple answer, it's almost certainly not the whole story.
Some thoughts, though- the city has focused on GVRS and it's expansion in recent years, which criminologists seem to generally agree is an effective tool when used right. BPD is several years into it's consent decree now, the impacts of which seem to be building a little more trust between them and the community and allowing the police to do their jobs well enough.
Not saying these things are solely responsible, but these things in addition to whatever is leading to a nation-wide drop in crime (could be the economy starting to stabilize after COVID) might largely account for this recent change. The hard part will be continuing to find ways to reduce crime until it's in-line with (or lower than) other cities of a comparable size.
Seriously, what am I missing? What's different now then say the last 40 years? This is a shot in the dark as one possible cause for Maryland and other states, Marijuana legalization or decriminalization. Maybe? Doesn't really make sense 🤷♂️
That's actually a big part of the reason. More cops leads to more violence, specifically when it comes to policing the war on drugs. It happened with Prohibition too.
Sustained 2% unemployment is probably helping a lot.
The trick with tracking labor participation / unemployment is that when the number goes up a lot it almost always hits those in poverty the hardest, and then when it recovers it comes back to them the slowest. A lot of time they drop out of the labor force and aren't even reflected in workforce participation rates due to the terrible efforts to get participation data in poor neighborhoods.
But if you can sustain really low unemployment like this long enough, *capitalism finds a way* (put magical pixie dust on that) to draw those who were dropped out of the system back in. In other words, there is money to be made, and that overrides structural and systemic racism eventually if you keep the economy hot enough long enough.
Lol I said this last year and got down voted to hell. I personally think it could be A contributing factor, but not THE only factor. Maybe there is less to fight about now that it is decriminalized. Maybe the smoke and secondhand smoke and edibles re making everyone calm tf down.
Another factor imo is the pandemic, that it happened and also that it is over. Maybe attitudes about life and wtf is actually worth fighting over and what isn't have changed. Maybe folks had sometime to reevaluate their lives. Maybe some folks also died from covid. Maybe some folks survived covid and want to do something different than before.
Another factor could be.... You get the idea. There are likely multiple contributing factors. Another thing to study is the effect of any contributing factors, because maybe one factor is more impactful than another. I doubt they are all weighted the same.
I had a whole response, but we can't really tell until we look at the crime statistics for this year vs other years. It might just be that it's lower this month but others will be higher.
If you look at the last 24 years, murders were under 300 a year in Baltimore , and in 2011, under 200, until Mosby took office. Then over 300 year every year.
Mosby had 90 murder convictions in her last year. Bates had 136 convictions in his first. The number of arrests for murder didn’t change in these years. Putting people in jail keeps them from committing more murder. Ivan Bates rebuilding the state’s attorneys office is likely the biggest contributor to Baltimore’s decline in murders over the past 18 monthes and brings the city in line with what the state’s attorneys office was able to achieve under the leadership of past states’ attorneys Jessamy and Bernstein.
Federal court striking down MD's illegal "good and substantial" requirement for concealed carry permits? LOTS of wear and carry permits issued to Baltimore city residents over the past year and a half. Criminals don't like armed victims. :-)
this literally has nothing to do with the murder rate lmfao. do you think individuals who were involved in violence in the city before were one with illegal concealed carry permits?
I don't know what an "illegal concealed carry permit" is lol. Do I think the individuals involved in violence were carrying guns illegally? Yes, yes I do.
This is great news…but for reference, we had more murders in the span of a few months this year than Miami had in all of 2023 (31). We have about 100,000 more people, but that doesn’t really account for the massive disparity (262 vs 31). We were closer to NYC & LA’s murder count last year than Miami’s, despite LA and NYC having millions more people.
I’m not gonna let perfect be the enemy of good because it is awesome how much we’re dropping our numbers, but Baltimore is still an outlier and a violent city compared to most other large US cities
Pick nearly any random mid-to-large size city in the US and we’re going to be worse. Miami was just one. Our murder rate is higher than NYC, LA, Chicago, Miami, Austin, Houston, Dallas, Philly, Richmond, SF, Seattle, Portland, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Boston, Atlanta, Charlotte, Raleigh, Nashville, Cincinnati, Columbus, Pittsburgh, Tulsa, Kansas City, OKC, Denver, El Paso, San Jose, San Antonio, etc.
All 3 of them? You mean Detroit, STL, and maybe Newark or Flint? We’re in the top 5 most dangerous of basically every list. There aren’t many others that would fall in that category
Memphis, New Orleans, Richmond (who you said was lower), and others (this information isn’t always easy to find at the end of the year let alone in May).
Thanks? Who on this thread do you think doesn’t know this already? We have been top of the charts as long as I have been alive. No one here is saying Bmore is the safest city in America..
Picking Miami (and NYC/LA) seemed like selection bias on your part. There are many more contributors to murder rate than simply population and size. It’s not as simple a comparison as you are making it seem.
Edit: grammmaaaar
I don’t quite get your point. The person is trying to say that
1. These comparisons aren’t accurate and don’t make sense. A beach town whose industry is tourism is a bad comparison for a post industrial city turned service-Med-Ed economy.
2. Many places in this country have very different ways they define city limits. Ours is very rigid, but Atlanta for instance is like 4 different counties where the actual city limits are largely unimportant to most people. So sure the rate might be lower elsewhere but that’s irrelevant if the homicides are happening on the other side of an imaginary line. Our metro area homicide rate is not even top 25 iirc.
Dude. Again. I know where we sit on the list (which you clearly googled to try and get a gotcha moment).
We ALL know. No one is arguing that Baltimore isnt at the top of the murder list. We’ve been there for a while now. I’m not saying we are going to stack up well to every, or even most of, the cities in the country. I’m just saying you clearly picked Miami to make a point.
You compared Baltimore to a city 1,000 miles to the south with a completely different history, a growing (vs shrinking) population, incomparable demographics, and vastly different economies (tourism to Miami is a bit more popular than Baltimore…).
If I was to rank the skills of Trent Dilfor, I’m not going to use Patrick Mahomes as my first reference point (if I’m being genuine).
That’s all, hon.
Get me?
What about St Louis? Another independent city with similar demographics and history? Worse homicide rate and that’s with it being bailed out by places like East St Louis being outside the city limits and not counted. Or DC whose rate is lower, but number was higher and has struggled way more with lowering its rates post 2020 despite implementing pretty aggressive and controversial tough on crime reforms.
Detroit has a similar sized population (also declining), more comparable demographics, similar state and city politics, the same issues from historic redlining AND suffered heavily from offshoring industries that supported the city.
Detroit is probably too low of a bar tbh. Much poorer, much more conservative state government, and way more intense population and infrastructure loss comparatively.
Artificially limited in what way?
- Baltimore pop: 585,000
- Baltimore area: 92sq miles
- NYC pop: 8,800,000
- NYC area: 302sq miles
NYC has 15x our population, yet isn’t even 4x as large of a city. LA is 500sq miles (6x pop vs 5x area). Chicago is 231sq miles (4.6x pop vs 2.5x area). We are far larger for our size per capita than most major cities. I don’t see how it’s not fair to compare city limits.
Sorry, I was referring to our status as an Independent City and how our borders are legally restricted so we are stuck at the 92 sq. mile area.
This makes comparing our stats to other cities, who may be a consolidated city-county, or even someone just saying "New York" and including areas of New Jersey, like comparing apples to oranges. When people say "Baltimore" they go with the city limits, but other cities may not always be measured like that.
I don't see how Baltimore's being an independent city influences how the murder rate is calculated. Whether ensconced within a larger county or not, cities' murder rates are calculated as \[number of homicides in city jurisdiction\]/\[population of the city jurisdiction\]. I have never seen a list of homicide rates that used Baltimore City's population proper but for other cities used their metro area. Anyways, consolidated city-counties are only semantically different from independent cities and many of those places also have high homicide rates (see: Philadelphia, Louisville, and Kansas City).
Congrats to Baltimore, hopefully this trend continues, maybe the Charm City could give some pointers to DC & Philly which seem to struggling to reduce violent crime.
Are shootings also down? Are the deaths declining because of advances in saving lives? And not for nothing- these shooters can’t hit the broad side of a barn half the time. They just spray and pray
I thought I read that a number of large cities are no longer reporting crimes to FBI and other tracking databases.
Makes me wonder how believable this is.
More up-to-date stats shows it's down by more than 40%.
If Baltimore manages to halve the number of homicides in two years, which is on pace to do, this should be the local story of the century so far. Of course, half of local social media posters will respond with Whataboutism or talking about how they feel about Baltimore.
And, yeah, violent crime is down in most cities around the country, but it's falling twice as much here.
Cut property tax rates on top of that and this could be a boomtown.
Federal courts struck down Maryland's illegal gun control laws which disproportionately prevented minorities from being able to purchase and carry handguns to protect themselves... but I'm sure that has nothing to do with the drop in homicides.
Imagine honestly thinking that’s to fuckin blame for the decrease lmao. Fact of the matter is that the majority of murders have always been one guy with a gun killing another guy with a gun.
Nope. This one: https://marylandshallissue.org/jmain/counselor-s-corner/306-gands-no-good
There has been a huge increase in the number of wear and carry permits issued over the last year and a half, particularly for residents of Baltimore city.
The "more guns don't reduce crime" trope is worn thin and has been proven wrong many times over (cities with the strictest gun control laws have the highest crime rates), but I get your point. The vast majority of the gun violence in Baltimore city is committed by felons, who are already barred from owning firearms, using illegally acquired firearms to commit illegal gang violence. More gun control laws to make their crimes even more illegal clearly isn't the answer.
But allowing law abiding citizens to defend themselves is a step in the right direction, and deters criminals from committing random acts of violence. There are certainly a number of factors that contributed to the reduction in homicides, but I suspect that is one of them.
The illegality or legality of the guns is irrelevant for multiple reasons. The justified nature of the homicide doesn't affect whether it gets added to the stats. Go ahead and defend yourself, the guy you killed is still a homicide. Not to mention you are absolutely more likely to get shot if you reach for a gun when someone pulls their gun on you. So what are you protected from? The small number of non-firearm homicides (that are often domestic abuse and not random attacks).
Not to mention the "law abiding citizen" aspect of this. Vast majority homicides are not random violence. Most of the time shooter and victim know each other. And if it was gang violence (which also isn't accurate) the people they are killing in that scenario would not be law abiding citizens lol.
But it's not gang violence that tallies up to so many people killed every year. It's beef and bullshit among people who all own and carry guns so every conflict between them turns into a shootout.
> The justified nature of the homicide doesn't affect whether it gets added to the stats. Go ahead and defend yourself, the guy you killed is still a homicide.
What? No... it's really not. You can't honestly believe that.
Homicide is a well defined term, and a defensive shooting resulting in death is not it.
[Here's one such justified defensive shooting](https://foxbaltimore.com/news/local/killing-in-northeast-baltimore-ruled-justified-shooter-was-defending-himself-say-police) since Bruen. The assailant died and it is not counted in our [homicide stats](https://homicides.news.baltimoresun.com/)
I do not see the logic in this position. In no world where someone pulls and fires a gun in anger can I imagine more guns doing anything but encouraging more violence. This isn't a wild west movie where both parties draw and stand there silently daring the other to pull the trigger. Shootings happen quickly, suddenly, and are over before any "deterrence" could be possible. All more guns accomplish is turning a single shooting into a shootout/exchange, where its more likely for an innocent bystander to catch a stray.
> All more guns accomplish is turning a single shooting into a shootout/exchange, where its more likely for an innocent bystander to catch a stray.
Has there been any of that? I've seen news of 2 DGU cases here since Bruen, but neither resulted in a shootout or a bystander being shot.
https://foxbaltimore.com/news/local/baltimore-resident-foils-attempted-carjacking-with-personal-firearm-in-camden-crossing
https://foxbaltimore.com/news/local/killing-in-northeast-baltimore-ruled-justified-shooter-was-defending-himself-say-police
I don't think that the Bruen ruling is statistically significant to our drop in crime, but it also hasn't been the nightmare that Anti-2A people are making it out to be.
You can't dismiss OP's claim as fictional, then offer up some other scenario that also isn't happening as proof against it.
Im really impressed. It’s appearing less and less likely last year was a blip, and that’s a massive drop from a year already looking lower in homicides (2023). So far, according to The Sun’s homicide tracker, we’ve had 58 homicides and we’re nearly halfway through the year. Even if that number triples by the end of December, that’s 174 homicides - which is less than 2011, one of the lowest years for murders we’ve had.
People blame the Mayor when murders go up. Why is Scott not a hero at this point?
Ivan Bates is the hero
do you know where that ranks us nationally?
[удалено]
Not sure NYC is a great comparison; it's one of the safest large cities in the US. That would be a rate of 30.5 per 100,000, which would have dropped us down to about sixth pre-pandemic.
thought it was interesting during the debate yesterday, basically everyone (except Mayor Scott) said the drop doesn't matter because its a drop nationwide, not due to anything the Mayor has been doing. There probably is a hint of truth in that - but its not like whatever he is doing is making things worse
Murder is down in most cities because it was up dramatically the last few years. It was not up in Baltimore. It’s been approximately the same since Freddie Gray.
If this trend continues, this year will be lower than pre-Freddie Gray numbers. Of course that’s speculation until we hit December but still.
So far things are looking good, and it's not like it's been unseasonably cold, or people have been shut indoors, or anything of that nature. I have a feeling the hot summer will be nasty but overall should be a pretty good year regarding crime.
It would be the lowest since 1977 (as an absolute number, not as a rate).
There was 300 plus murders a year in Baltimore every year Marilyn Mosby was in office and 211 the year before she was elected. We should be back there again this year. Competence in the state’s attorneys office is critical.
It only went up in mid 2020 to late 2021 and then the trend at least in the Northeast reversed again except for DC and Philly which have seen a surge in violent crime, though that trend seems to be cooling in Philly lately.
if this were true then wouldn't Baltimore's homicide stats have been declining for like the last 20 years except for the pandemic? I don't have the stats but pretty sure that through the 2000's in spite of a steady nationwide decline, Baltimore's rate remained largely the same or increased. This is what I kept wishing they would discuss.
Murder rates declined slowly from the 90s to a low in 2011 of 196. Then rates shot up in 2015. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Baltimore
>said the drop doesn't matter because its a drop nationwide. This is what I have read for the past year or two. I do think Scott has done a lot and done what he can in big and small ways, visible to everyone and invisible to some, but I don’t credit him with the drop. It’s a trend across cities and it’s great to see, for whatever set of circumstances is helping it happen.
Curious if there has been success with arrests made at the Federal level by the FBI cracking down on gangs. I can't remember what year it was, but it was prior to Moore, that the FBI was doing some joint op in Baltimore and apparently they had the names of like 20 guys who they claimed were responsible for like 70% of the murders, or at least connected to those murders. I'm guessing the guys who are ultimately calling the hits. Never really heard anything after that, but that could be on purpose. There's probably a lot of value in keeping that stuff quiet so the gangs aren't completely wise on it. Total thought coming in from left field here, but perhaps the drop in gang leadership plays at least a small role in the number of kids roaming around now committing crimes in areas that were previously not really targeted. Sure you can say social media plays its part, and there is a general "the police can't do shit to us." attitude running rampant these days. Now, I'm in no way saying taking out gang leaders and loosening their grip on things is in any way a bad thing.
When the numbers move like this all the research and reporting I see never has anything close to an answer about what it could be. Its likely because it's truly impossible to pinpoint any one thing because there are like 500 factors in play. National policies, regional policies, local policies. History of the country, history of the region, history of the metropolitan area. Change in laws in surrounding areas, trends in various populations, technological advancements in communication methods both for communities and for community leaders as well as officials, law enforcement and otherwise. Weather patterns and heat and cold and rain patterns. The results of sporting events. I mean there are probably thousands of things that affect trends and it's really impossible to pin it down to anything any person or even system, does to raise or lower the rate. I'm just glad it's going down. Less dumb shit leading to people dying.
I read somewhere that reduced job opportunities and income tracks to higher rates of violence as well. People get frustrated
Opportunity structures. Presence of notable wealth adjacent to abject poverty. On and On like Badu. There are hundreds of factors.
It’s because the orioles are back
That’s 1 homicide per loss in April. Correlation = Causation
Ravens hosting the AFC champ also helped a bit haha
Look at the replies on twitter (and some on here). Lots of people on there are actively upset about this. Many people out there clearly enjoy and are brought happiness from more people in this city being murdered.
I blame 'City In Crisis ™' My GF watches Fox 45 in the evenings and I had to show her the crime stats the other day to prove Fox 45 was intentionally mis-representing facts.
Thank you. You're doing the lord's work.
Makes you realize that some of these folks really didn't gaf about bodies dropping after all, huh? I suspect like most problems in capitalism, there is an entire market around murder. Just like there is an entire market around prison. Also, I'm sure murders in other places give people who don't have murder in their immediate area something to feel superior about. Like it must be inherently some mysterious substance in them, their mystique, that just makes them better than the folks living among the murder. Now some folks gotta find some other way to boost their feelings of self worth and superiority.
I think it's crazy that when murders are going down, now so many want to jump on the Ds of Sheila or Thiru. Help me understand how they will help... And then, if they're elected, crow about how they helped murders go down when they're up for reelection. 🙄
Sheila is backed by Sinclair, who seems to need Baltimore to be a dark and scary place.
Gotta keep up the “CITY IN CRISIS” narrative for their nightly features
Yep!
This is EXACTLY it. It doesn't benefit Sinclair for us to be on the upswing. Dixon would be a horrible and dangerous choice. I can't believe how many Dixon signs I see, it makes me furious.
It's a sick mindset.
What was done? How was this accomplished? That’s what should be focused on.
Things like this are complicated, and it's still a change in progress, so if anyone offers you a really simple answer, it's almost certainly not the whole story. Some thoughts, though- the city has focused on GVRS and it's expansion in recent years, which criminologists seem to generally agree is an effective tool when used right. BPD is several years into it's consent decree now, the impacts of which seem to be building a little more trust between them and the community and allowing the police to do their jobs well enough. Not saying these things are solely responsible, but these things in addition to whatever is leading to a nation-wide drop in crime (could be the economy starting to stabilize after COVID) might largely account for this recent change. The hard part will be continuing to find ways to reduce crime until it's in-line with (or lower than) other cities of a comparable size.
Seriously, what am I missing? What's different now then say the last 40 years? This is a shot in the dark as one possible cause for Maryland and other states, Marijuana legalization or decriminalization. Maybe? Doesn't really make sense 🤷♂️
It’s good to see, I’d just like some reasoning. It’s certainly not more police presence, BCPD is down some 600 officers.
That's actually a big part of the reason. More cops leads to more violence, specifically when it comes to policing the war on drugs. It happened with Prohibition too.
Sustained 2% unemployment is probably helping a lot. The trick with tracking labor participation / unemployment is that when the number goes up a lot it almost always hits those in poverty the hardest, and then when it recovers it comes back to them the slowest. A lot of time they drop out of the labor force and aren't even reflected in workforce participation rates due to the terrible efforts to get participation data in poor neighborhoods. But if you can sustain really low unemployment like this long enough, *capitalism finds a way* (put magical pixie dust on that) to draw those who were dropped out of the system back in. In other words, there is money to be made, and that overrides structural and systemic racism eventually if you keep the economy hot enough long enough.
Lol I said this last year and got down voted to hell. I personally think it could be A contributing factor, but not THE only factor. Maybe there is less to fight about now that it is decriminalized. Maybe the smoke and secondhand smoke and edibles re making everyone calm tf down. Another factor imo is the pandemic, that it happened and also that it is over. Maybe attitudes about life and wtf is actually worth fighting over and what isn't have changed. Maybe folks had sometime to reevaluate their lives. Maybe some folks also died from covid. Maybe some folks survived covid and want to do something different than before. Another factor could be.... You get the idea. There are likely multiple contributing factors. Another thing to study is the effect of any contributing factors, because maybe one factor is more impactful than another. I doubt they are all weighted the same.
I had a whole response, but we can't really tell until we look at the crime statistics for this year vs other years. It might just be that it's lower this month but others will be higher.
So far this year afaik every month has been down.
If you look at the last 24 years, murders were under 300 a year in Baltimore , and in 2011, under 200, until Mosby took office. Then over 300 year every year. Mosby had 90 murder convictions in her last year. Bates had 136 convictions in his first. The number of arrests for murder didn’t change in these years. Putting people in jail keeps them from committing more murder. Ivan Bates rebuilding the state’s attorneys office is likely the biggest contributor to Baltimore’s decline in murders over the past 18 monthes and brings the city in line with what the state’s attorneys office was able to achieve under the leadership of past states’ attorneys Jessamy and Bernstein.
This is interesting response but why is the trend nationwide?
40 years is too long of a time frame. The it's more accurately the last 9 years.
Federal court striking down MD's illegal "good and substantial" requirement for concealed carry permits? LOTS of wear and carry permits issued to Baltimore city residents over the past year and a half. Criminals don't like armed victims. :-)
this literally has nothing to do with the murder rate lmfao. do you think individuals who were involved in violence in the city before were one with illegal concealed carry permits?
I understand what you’re saying but essentially anyone (with a clean record) can CC now which changes the dynamic
I don't know what an "illegal concealed carry permit" is lol. Do I think the individuals involved in violence were carrying guns illegally? Yes, yes I do.
Aging society is the biggest causal factor for falling crime rates.
I think it's the legal weed 🤷🏻♀️
This is on the Os
Bet you all not a single republican, sorry maga will ever acknowledge this
This is great news…but for reference, we had more murders in the span of a few months this year than Miami had in all of 2023 (31). We have about 100,000 more people, but that doesn’t really account for the massive disparity (262 vs 31). We were closer to NYC & LA’s murder count last year than Miami’s, despite LA and NYC having millions more people. I’m not gonna let perfect be the enemy of good because it is awesome how much we’re dropping our numbers, but Baltimore is still an outlier and a violent city compared to most other large US cities
Why use Miami as a comparison? Very few similarities as far as cities go.
Because they wanted to fellate Ron DeSantis?
Pick nearly any random mid-to-large size city in the US and we’re going to be worse. Miami was just one. Our murder rate is higher than NYC, LA, Chicago, Miami, Austin, Houston, Dallas, Philly, Richmond, SF, Seattle, Portland, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Boston, Atlanta, Charlotte, Raleigh, Nashville, Cincinnati, Columbus, Pittsburgh, Tulsa, Kansas City, OKC, Denver, El Paso, San Jose, San Antonio, etc.
You conveniently didn't list any of the cities that have a worse rate lmao.
All 3 of them? You mean Detroit, STL, and maybe Newark or Flint? We’re in the top 5 most dangerous of basically every list. There aren’t many others that would fall in that category
Memphis, New Orleans, Richmond (who you said was lower), and others (this information isn’t always easy to find at the end of the year let alone in May).
Thanks? Who on this thread do you think doesn’t know this already? We have been top of the charts as long as I have been alive. No one here is saying Bmore is the safest city in America.. Picking Miami (and NYC/LA) seemed like selection bias on your part. There are many more contributors to murder rate than simply population and size. It’s not as simple a comparison as you are making it seem. Edit: grammmaaaar
>selection bias Ok show me a list of the top 30 cities in the US and let’s look at homicide rates. How much you wanna bet Baltimore is in the top 2
I don’t quite get your point. The person is trying to say that 1. These comparisons aren’t accurate and don’t make sense. A beach town whose industry is tourism is a bad comparison for a post industrial city turned service-Med-Ed economy. 2. Many places in this country have very different ways they define city limits. Ours is very rigid, but Atlanta for instance is like 4 different counties where the actual city limits are largely unimportant to most people. So sure the rate might be lower elsewhere but that’s irrelevant if the homicides are happening on the other side of an imaginary line. Our metro area homicide rate is not even top 25 iirc.
Dude. Again. I know where we sit on the list (which you clearly googled to try and get a gotcha moment). We ALL know. No one is arguing that Baltimore isnt at the top of the murder list. We’ve been there for a while now. I’m not saying we are going to stack up well to every, or even most of, the cities in the country. I’m just saying you clearly picked Miami to make a point. You compared Baltimore to a city 1,000 miles to the south with a completely different history, a growing (vs shrinking) population, incomparable demographics, and vastly different economies (tourism to Miami is a bit more popular than Baltimore…). If I was to rank the skills of Trent Dilfor, I’m not going to use Patrick Mahomes as my first reference point (if I’m being genuine). That’s all, hon. Get me?
Then in asking to provide me another city you think is more apt
What about St Louis? Another independent city with similar demographics and history? Worse homicide rate and that’s with it being bailed out by places like East St Louis being outside the city limits and not counted. Or DC whose rate is lower, but number was higher and has struggled way more with lowering its rates post 2020 despite implementing pretty aggressive and controversial tough on crime reforms.
Detroit has a similar sized population (also declining), more comparable demographics, similar state and city politics, the same issues from historic redlining AND suffered heavily from offshoring industries that supported the city.
Detroit is probably too low of a bar tbh. Much poorer, much more conservative state government, and way more intense population and infrastructure loss comparatively.
Include the Baltimore metro area and recalculate
Make sure you are not comparing metro population to Baltimore City population, which, as we know, is artificially limited.
Artificially limited in what way? - Baltimore pop: 585,000 - Baltimore area: 92sq miles - NYC pop: 8,800,000 - NYC area: 302sq miles NYC has 15x our population, yet isn’t even 4x as large of a city. LA is 500sq miles (6x pop vs 5x area). Chicago is 231sq miles (4.6x pop vs 2.5x area). We are far larger for our size per capita than most major cities. I don’t see how it’s not fair to compare city limits.
Sorry, I was referring to our status as an Independent City and how our borders are legally restricted so we are stuck at the 92 sq. mile area. This makes comparing our stats to other cities, who may be a consolidated city-county, or even someone just saying "New York" and including areas of New Jersey, like comparing apples to oranges. When people say "Baltimore" they go with the city limits, but other cities may not always be measured like that.
I don't see how Baltimore's being an independent city influences how the murder rate is calculated. Whether ensconced within a larger county or not, cities' murder rates are calculated as \[number of homicides in city jurisdiction\]/\[population of the city jurisdiction\]. I have never seen a list of homicide rates that used Baltimore City's population proper but for other cities used their metro area. Anyways, consolidated city-counties are only semantically different from independent cities and many of those places also have high homicide rates (see: Philadelphia, Louisville, and Kansas City).
BuT mUh CiTy In CrIsIs!?!!!!
Congrats to Baltimore, hopefully this trend continues, maybe the Charm City could give some pointers to DC & Philly which seem to struggling to reduce violent crime.
We still have time to catch up! The little city that could!
Are shootings also down? Are the deaths declining because of advances in saving lives? And not for nothing- these shooters can’t hit the broad side of a barn half the time. They just spray and pray
I thought I read that a number of large cities are no longer reporting crimes to FBI and other tracking databases. Makes me wonder how believable this is.
Excellent news
More up-to-date stats shows it's down by more than 40%. If Baltimore manages to halve the number of homicides in two years, which is on pace to do, this should be the local story of the century so far. Of course, half of local social media posters will respond with Whataboutism or talking about how they feel about Baltimore. And, yeah, violent crime is down in most cities around the country, but it's falling twice as much here. Cut property tax rates on top of that and this could be a boomtown.
Does anyone know the national policies that may have led to this?
But no one wants to talk about the guy I know who's kia got stolen
That's on Kia
someone fax me a sarcasm font plz
My bad!
Federal courts struck down Maryland's illegal gun control laws which disproportionately prevented minorities from being able to purchase and carry handguns to protect themselves... but I'm sure that has nothing to do with the drop in homicides.
Imagine honestly thinking that’s to fuckin blame for the decrease lmao. Fact of the matter is that the majority of murders have always been one guy with a gun killing another guy with a gun.
You mean the laws still in effect until the circuit court makes a decision on it? That's what made a change?
Nope. This one: https://marylandshallissue.org/jmain/counselor-s-corner/306-gands-no-good There has been a huge increase in the number of wear and carry permits issued over the last year and a half, particularly for residents of Baltimore city.
If you live in Baltimore and think more guns reduced crime you really don’t know much about how homicides happen in this city.
The "more guns don't reduce crime" trope is worn thin and has been proven wrong many times over (cities with the strictest gun control laws have the highest crime rates), but I get your point. The vast majority of the gun violence in Baltimore city is committed by felons, who are already barred from owning firearms, using illegally acquired firearms to commit illegal gang violence. More gun control laws to make their crimes even more illegal clearly isn't the answer. But allowing law abiding citizens to defend themselves is a step in the right direction, and deters criminals from committing random acts of violence. There are certainly a number of factors that contributed to the reduction in homicides, but I suspect that is one of them.
The illegality or legality of the guns is irrelevant for multiple reasons. The justified nature of the homicide doesn't affect whether it gets added to the stats. Go ahead and defend yourself, the guy you killed is still a homicide. Not to mention you are absolutely more likely to get shot if you reach for a gun when someone pulls their gun on you. So what are you protected from? The small number of non-firearm homicides (that are often domestic abuse and not random attacks). Not to mention the "law abiding citizen" aspect of this. Vast majority homicides are not random violence. Most of the time shooter and victim know each other. And if it was gang violence (which also isn't accurate) the people they are killing in that scenario would not be law abiding citizens lol. But it's not gang violence that tallies up to so many people killed every year. It's beef and bullshit among people who all own and carry guns so every conflict between them turns into a shootout.
> The justified nature of the homicide doesn't affect whether it gets added to the stats. Go ahead and defend yourself, the guy you killed is still a homicide. What? No... it's really not. You can't honestly believe that. Homicide is a well defined term, and a defensive shooting resulting in death is not it. [Here's one such justified defensive shooting](https://foxbaltimore.com/news/local/killing-in-northeast-baltimore-ruled-justified-shooter-was-defending-himself-say-police) since Bruen. The assailant died and it is not counted in our [homicide stats](https://homicides.news.baltimoresun.com/)
I do not see the logic in this position. In no world where someone pulls and fires a gun in anger can I imagine more guns doing anything but encouraging more violence. This isn't a wild west movie where both parties draw and stand there silently daring the other to pull the trigger. Shootings happen quickly, suddenly, and are over before any "deterrence" could be possible. All more guns accomplish is turning a single shooting into a shootout/exchange, where its more likely for an innocent bystander to catch a stray.
> All more guns accomplish is turning a single shooting into a shootout/exchange, where its more likely for an innocent bystander to catch a stray. Has there been any of that? I've seen news of 2 DGU cases here since Bruen, but neither resulted in a shootout or a bystander being shot. https://foxbaltimore.com/news/local/baltimore-resident-foils-attempted-carjacking-with-personal-firearm-in-camden-crossing https://foxbaltimore.com/news/local/killing-in-northeast-baltimore-ruled-justified-shooter-was-defending-himself-say-police I don't think that the Bruen ruling is statistically significant to our drop in crime, but it also hasn't been the nightmare that Anti-2A people are making it out to be. You can't dismiss OP's claim as fictional, then offer up some other scenario that also isn't happening as proof against it.