By Yana Singhal
WASHINGTON, DC – Since Covid-19, the pandemic led to high rates of crime in all sectors, but from then to December of 2023, there have been many startling changes with an overall decrease in many petty crimes, according to a report by the “Council on Criminal Justice.”
CCJ has compiled the “monthly rates at which 12 offenses are reported to law enforcement in 38 American cities,” noting the 38 cities where all this information has been compiled aren’t meant to be indicative of all US states, but do reflect overall changes in different crime rates.
“The number of homicides in the 32 study cities providing homicide data was 10 percent lower—representing 515 fewer homicides—in 2023 than in 2022,” the report said.
CCJ added that overall there is a decrease in the number of “violent offenses,’ such as aggravated assaults being down by three percent overall, gun assaults down by seven percent in 11 cities, and reported carjacking incidents down by five percent in 10 cities.
However, it was noted that “robberies and domestic violence incidents each rose two percent.”
Data collected by the CCJ state crime rates in terms of property crimes were all down with “reports of residential burglaries (-3 percent), nonresidential burglaries (-7 percent), and larcenies (-4 percent)”
However, with COVID-19 (summer of 2020), and since, motor vehicle theft has been slowly increasing with a 29 percent increase in motor vehicle thefts, the report notes, with motor vehicle thefts more than doubling (+105 percent) during this time frame (summer of 2020 to current), while drug crimes fell by 27 percent.
Compared to late 2019/ 2020, CCJ’s report writes there are “18 percent more homicides in the study cities in 2023 than in 2019, and carjacking spiked by 93 percent during that period.”
However, it is worth noting the same report suggests “crime rates are largely returning to pre-COVID levels as the nation distances itself from the height of the pandemic” and “household surveys of violent victimization, indicate higher rates and more pronounced shifts than reports to law enforcement agencies.”
Overall crime data reports, notes the CCJ, indicate, “Offense counts were converted to monthly crime rates per 100,000 city residents for analysis of monthly trends” and “Offense classifications varied somewhat across the cities, and not all cities reported data for each crime, The number of cities reporting crime data ranged from a high of 34 for motor vehicle theft to a low of 10 for carjacking. ”
Overall, CCJ warns, these data reports may not be exact as they are more of a timestamp of the numbers presented compared to other numbers and CCJ states the numbers “may differ from data subsequently published by individual police departments,” although data also does exclude certain offenses that “are not reported to law enforcement.”
The Council of Criminal Justice reports a significant drop in residential burglary and drug offenses, but “the homicide rate was 32.5 percent higher in the first two months of 2020 compared to 2019, before COVID-19 restrictions and summer protests,” and, “Motor vehicle theft continues to stand out because of its startling upward trajectory, with rates well above pre-2020 levels and continuing to rise in 2023.”
