WASHINGTON, DC – The Council On Criminal Justice (CCJ)’s recent 2024 mid-year report on crime trends in the U.S. extended its analyses that began during the early “months of the COVID pandemic” through June 2024.
Overall, per the CCJ, the study has shown an overall “encouraging trend” in which 11 of the 12 crimes reported lower rates in the first half of 2024 than in 2023.
Still, the CCJ points out that in observing over a longer period of time, “the analysis suggests that most offenses in the sample cities are returning to 2019 levels, though some are not.”
The study included 39 cities ranging from Syracuse, NY (the smallest city of the 39 with roughly 142,000 residents) to New York City (the largest city of the 39 with more than 8.4 million residents).
The study observes changes for 12 crimes from 2018 to June 2024, and according to the report, included violent offenses–homicide, aggravated assault, gun assault, domestic violence, robbery, carjacking– and property and drug offenses– residential burglary, nonresidential burglary, larceny, shoplifting, motor vehicle theft, and drug offenses–(with “special attention” given to homicide).
The CCJ’s study obtained crime data from online portals of “city police departments that provided monthly incident-level data” between January 2018 and June 2024. However, the CCJ noted that offense classifications varied across cities and “not all cities reported data for each crime.”
The CCJ’s report observed homicide trends from 2018 to June 2024 and found that homicide levels in the summer of 2020 “far exceeded previous peaks during the study period” amid COVID lockdowns and “protests against police violence after George Floyd’s murder…by Minneapolis police.”
The report also found that the homicide rate during the “first half of 2024” was 13 percent lower than in 2023 during the same period, showing 319 less homicides in the cities that reported data, and two percent lower than the first half of 2019–again during the same period.
This overall decline, the CCJ noted, was driven by large drops in “cities with traditionally high homicide rates, including Baltimore, Philadelphia, and St. Louis.”
Aggravated assaults, like homicide, peaked during the summer of 2020, according to the report, and continued to rise through 2021. But, in the 20 cities that reported data for aggravated assaults, the data showed that the rate was seven percent lower during the first half of 2024 than 2023 during the same period.
And overall, the aggravated assault rate, per the CCJ, was approximately 0.2 percent lower in the first half of 2024 than the first half of 2019.
Gun assaults saw similar trends as seen for homicide and aggravated assault. The rate peaked during the summer of 2020 and then declined in 2022. It fell by 12 percent from 2022 to 2023 but was 15 percent higher by the end of 2023 than in 2019.
However, in the eight cities that reported data for gun assaults, the rate during the first half of 2024 was 18 percent lower than in 2023 during the same period. Still, overall, the rate was one percent higher in the first half of 2024 than 2019 during the same period.
Domestic violence, according to the report, showed a general decline. In the 10 cities that reported data for domestic violence, the rate was two percent lower during the first half of 2024 than in 2023 during the same period. And overall, the rate was eight percent lower in the first half of 2024 than the first half of 2019.
Robbery incident data was provided by 34 cities. The data, according to the CCJ, showed during the first half of 2024 the rate was six percent lower than in 2023 during the same period. And overall, the rate was 15 percent lower in the first half of 2024 than the first half of 2019.
Carjacking incident data was provided by seven cities. The CCJ reported that during the first half of 2024, the rate was 26 percent lower than in 2023 during the same period. However, overall, the carjacking rate was ultimately 68 percent higher in the first half of 2024 than the first half of 2019.
Residential burglary incident data was provided by 16 cities, showing the rate was 14 percent lower during the first half of 2024 than in 2023 during the same period. And overall, according to the report, the rate was 39 percent lower in the first half of 2024 than in the first half of 2019.
Next, the report found that there was an “abrupt and brief spike” in nonresidential burglary shortly after the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, “coinciding with protests over police violence” which contributed to a 43 percent rate increase from 2019 to 2020.
However, according to the data provided by 16 cities, the CCJ found the rate was 10 percent lower during the first half of 2024 than in 2023 during the same period. Still, the rate was ultimately 14 percent higher in the first half of 2024 than in the first half of 2019.
Larceny, per the 36 cities that provided larceny incident data, found a six percent lower rate during the first half of 2024 than in 2023 during the same period. Overall, the CCJ noted, the larceny rate was nine percent lower in the first half of 2024 than in 2019 during the same period.
Shoplifting incident data, the report notes, was provided by 23 cities. The CCJ found the rate was 24 percent higher in the first half of 2024 than in 2023 during the same period. And overall, the rate was 10 percent higher in the first half of 2024 than in 2019 during the same period.
Motor vehicle theft incident data was provided by 36 cities. The CCJ found that the rate was 18 percent lower during the first half of 2024 than in 2023 during the same period. However, overall, the rate was ultimately 66 percent higher in the first half of 2024 than in 2019 during the same period.
Lastly, drug offense data was provided by 22 cities, according to the report. The CCJ found that the rate was two percent lower during the first half of 2024 than in 2023 during the same period. In fact, overall, the rate was found to be 28 percent lower in the first half of 2024 than in 2019 during the same period.
The report again makes a point to note that though the CCJ’s study provides “key analyses to advance understanding of current trends,” it is ultimately not an “adequate substitute for timely, accurate, and complete crime data on a much larger scale.”
The CCJ report notes that because the crime incident data used in the study were obtained “within days of the end of the study period” to provide a “snapshot of crime across the nation at the midpoint of the year,” the figures of data often differ from the data published by individual police departments.
Additionally, the figures of data, per the CCJ, may also differ from the figures in previous CCJ reports due to them being based on a “different number and mix of cities.” CCJ emphasizes data in the mid-year report should be viewed as “preliminary.”
The CCJ also notes the sample of the 39 cities used for the study are not “necessarily representative of all large American cities or the nation as a whole” and that, additionally, many offenses are “not reported to law enforcement.”
The CCJ add rape and sexual assault are not included in its mid-year report because it relies on “incident-level data, explaining many jurisdictions exclude these offenses from incident-level data in order to protect victim identities.
