New AH Datalytics Data Shows Sharp Decline in Murder Rates in 2023

New data from AH Datalytics shows ​“sharp and broad decline” in mur­der rates for 2023. In a recent arti­cle pub­lished in The Atlantic, Jeff Asher (pic­tured), a crime ana­lyst based in New Orleans and co-founder of AH Datalytics, writes that the decline in mur­der rates across the United States is ​“one of the largest annu­al per­cent changes in mur­der ever recorded.” 

According to AH Datalytics, mur­der rates decreased by 12 per­cent in more than 90 cities that have released data for 2023. In Los Angeles, Houston, and Philadelphia, mur­der has dropped to more than 20 per­cent. Additionally, the data shows that mur­der has decreased by 30 per­cent or more in cities locat­ed in the south­ern and mid­west­ern regions includ­ing, but not lim­it­ed to, Baton Rouge, LA; Tampa, FL; Cincinnati, OH; Jackson, Mississippi; Atlanta, Georgia; Little Rock, Arkansas; Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Milwaukee, Wisconsin (Click here for sources).

In recent months, some elect­ed offi­cials or those run­ning for polit­i­cal office have called for use of the death penal­ty to address a per­ceived rise in vio­lent crime. But stud­ies, includ­ing Stephen Oliphant’s study on the death penalty’s effect on homi­cide rates, have report­ed ​“no evi­dence of a deter­rent effect attrib­ut­able to death penalty statutes.” 

Jerry Ratcliffe, a crim­i­nal-jus­tice pro­fes­sor at Temple University in Philadelphia offered a prob­a­ble expla­na­tion for the decline in mur­der rates by stat­ing, ​“It is pos­si­ble that police depart­ments have returned to some of the proac­tive work that they cur­tailed dur­ing the COVID pan­dem­ic and after George Floyd, activ­i­ties that may be inhibit­ing some gun vio­lence.” Ratcliffe also sug­gest­ed that the trend could be caused by the end of the emer­gency phase of the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic. ​“With COVID restric­tions being lift­ed and a return to some degree of nor­mal­cy, the tra­di­tion­al con­straints that occurred with­in soci­ety affect­ing the rou­tine activ­i­ties of peo­ple have returned,” said Ratcliffe.