Elim Garak
Veteran
With 2023 ticking down, the nation is poised to finish the year with its biggest annual drop in homicides on record, according to preliminary data from law enforcement agencies both large and small.
The homicide rate in the United States is expected to plummet nearly 13% compared to 2022, meaning more than 2,000 fewer people were the victims of homicide this year, Jeff Asher, a national crime analyst, told ABC News.
The drop in homicides comes as more than three-quarters of Americans say there is more crime in the U.S. than a year ago and more than half of Americans say the same about crime in their local area, according to a Gallup poll released last month. Adding to that perception is the annual National Crime Victimization Survey published this month by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics that found the number of violent crime victims nationwide climbed from 16.5 per 1,000 people in 2021 to 23.5 per 1,000 in 2022.
Cities say the 2023 drop in homicides and other violent crimes can be attributed to expanded efforts to prevent crime, including working with community volunteers, targeting gun possession in high-crime areas and placing officers on foot and bike patrols.
"It is historic. It's the largest one-year decline," said Asher, co-founder of AH Datalytics and a former crime analyst for the CIA and the New Orleans Police Department. "It's cities of every size, it's the suburbs, it's rural counties, tiny cities, it's large cities. It's really a national decline."
Asher said his analysis is based on available preliminary crime data provided by 180 law enforcement agencies.
He said before this year, the largest year-over-year drop in homicides occurred in 1996 when murders fell by 9%.
An ABC News review of preliminary crime data from the 10 largest U.S. cities shows that heading into the last week of the year, seven of the municipalities have seen double-digit year-over-year declines in 2023 homicides -- including an 11% drop in New York City, a 16% decrease in Los Angeles, and a 13% reduction in Chicago.
Houston, the country's fourth largest city, saw its homicide numbers fall by 11% and homicides in Philadelphia, the nation's sixth biggest city, have fallen by 21%, according to the preliminary data.
