Why are homicides decreasing in big cities?

The obvious answer is the correct one.

The Washington Post reports:

Homicides declined last year in nearly two dozen U.S. cities, though many communities still continued to face higher levels of deadly violence than they did in 2019, before a spike in killings, according to a new report on crime trends [Note: The homicide rate in the cities studied is still up by 18 percent over what it was in 2019, according to the report].

The report by the nonpartisan Council on Criminal Justice also said that while numerous cities saw violent crime fall in 2023 from the year before, other offenses increased over the same period, including motor vehicle thefts.

The analysis the Post relies on includes only a relatively small number of cities, but encompasses the largest ones, including Philadelphia, New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles, all of which reported a decrease in homicides.

However:

These experiences were not universal. Memphis had nearly 400 homicides last year, breaking a record set only two years earlier, when the city had nearly 350 homicides.

In Washington, meanwhile, homicides surged in 2023 over the previous year, with 274 killings — up 35 percent from the year before. The nation’s capital had a homicide rate in 2023 that was higher than nearly all of the nation’s largest cities. Homicides were not the only crime to climb significantly in Washington: Carjackings also soared, and many of them involved young people.

On the big question — Why the decline in homicides? —the Post is silent. It doesn’t even ask the question. It does consider, briefly and inconclusively, why homicides rose after 2019:

Experts say there was no single explanation for what drove that increase, though they cited as possible factors the stress of the coronavirus pandemic, which began in 2020, and the rising number of guns nationwide.

The anti-police hysteria following George Floyd’s death, and the consequences of that hysteria aren’t mentioned.

The implication of the Post’s speculation, I suppose, is that to the extent homicides are declining it’s due, at least in part, to less stress over covid. (There’s no suggestion that guns have become less available nationwide). But stress over covid has been declining since mid-2021. It seems implausible to attribute a major decline in homicides in 2023 to this alleged cause. Indeed, it’s unclear why gang members, the big drivers of the increase in homicides, would shoot people because of covid stress.

The Post and its “experts” decline to consider the most obvious explanation for the decreases in homicides — increased policing, now that Black Lives Matter and efforts to defund the police have receded. But evidence supports this intuitively obvious explanation.

The best evidence I’m aware of comes from Atlanta, where homicides dropped by 21 percent last year and rapes, shootings, aggravated assaults, robberies, thefts from vehicles, and burglaries also declined. Erick Erickson discusses this development here.

The Mayor of Atlanta, Andre Dickens, faced with a secession effort in the northern wards due to crime and violent protests from the far left over a police training facility, has deployed a novel trick in The City Too Busy to Hate. He actually pushed law enforcement to enforce the law. Under Mayor Dickens and Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum, the city began aggressively cracking down on gun crimes and gang violence. . . .

Mayor Dickens, upon taking office, had to do two things. First, he needed to calm Buckhead's nerves. Its departure would have dramatically cut tax revenue for the city. Second, he needed to ameliorate police morale. He did both by letting the police actually police.

The results speak for themselves. When I venture into Atlanta, I stay at a particular hotel due to its security and access controls. Whenever I have ventured out in the past two years, the valets at the front door have, without fail, warned me if it was too late to go out or where I should avoid. In the past few months, they have stopped. The situation has dramatically improved. . . .

That’s not to say there are no problems. Drug problems remain. Homelessness and related crime are a problem. But the violence the city had seen has diminished as police have cracked down on unlawful gun possessions, gun crimes, and gang violence. Buckhead has breathed a sigh of relief. People are more prone to walk down Peachtree Street after dark. People have returned to Piedmont Park. The police are visible.

New York City is another, albeit less dramatic, example. Erickson writes:

Mayor Eric Adams has sent police back into the streets deploying variations of “stop and frisk.” It has both cut crime and inspired progressives, including the local district attorney, to campaign against the efforts to reduce crime. Progressive prosecutors in New York, not the Mayor or police, are causing the problems.

It’s a big stretch to attribute a sharp increase in homicides to stress over covid. By contrast, it’s just common sense to attribute decreases in crime to a willingness to police, especially proactively. After all, crime prevention is the main purpose of policing.

Willingness to police, coupled with willingness to prosecute and tougher sentencing, drove crime rates down dramatically in the 1990s and 2000s. If America regains the will to police, prosecute, and sentence, it will probably witness the same kind of sharp decline in the 2020s.