By Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner of Wirepoints
When the DNC delegates come to Chicago, they’ll be visiting the city that for more than a decade has experienced the most murders in the country. Chicago suffered 617 total homicides in 2023, marking the 12th year in a row it has led the country.
And it will be 13 years in a row if Chicago’s 2024’s homicide numbers continue at their current pace. The below chart shows how the top five cities nationally for total homicides may change from year to year, but what always remains true is Chicago’s position at the very top – often the extreme outlier.
That’s just one of the findings from Wirepoints’ analysis of publicly-available 2023 homicide data from the nation’s 75 largest U.S. cities.
St. Louis was the nation’s other murder capital in 2023 when based on homicides per capita. The Gateway City suffered 60 homicides per 100,000 residents, taking the top spot away from 2022’s capital, New Orleans.* The city was struggling even before George Floyd, with a homicide rate of 64.5 in 2019.
Looking at homicides on a per capita basis is the most logical way to measure the weight crime imposes on a given community. It also allows for an apples-to-apples comparison across cities. However, ranking cities by the number of homicides is also important due to the sheer number of murders that occur in big cities. St. Louis may have a homicide rate that’s much higher than Chicago, but it suffered less than a third of the murders Chicago did. They both deserve to be crowned murder capitals.
Below we list the nation’s top 20 cities by total homicides and per capita homicides and in Appendix A and B we list out all 75 cities.
Homicides have continued their year-on-year decline in most cities across the nation. That lessening bloodshed is good news, but it doesn’t change the fact that homicide rates remain far above their 2019 pre-covid, pre-George-Floyd levels.
The report below includes the following sections:
- A look at total homicides in 2023
- A look at homicides rates in 2023
- A comparison of 2023 homicides to their 2019 levels
- A comparison of 2024 homicides to 2023 YTD
- The DNC and the reality of Chicago crime
Chicago, New York, led the nation in number of homicides
Chicago led the nation in criminal homicides 617 murders in 2023. That was by far the most among the nation’s top 75 cities. Not even New York, which is three times bigger than Chicago, or Philadelphia came close, with those two cities suffering 391 and 389 murders, respectively.
Rounding out the top ten were Memphis (367), Houston (351), Los Angeles (327), Washington D.C. (274), Dallas (268), Baltimore (263), and Detroit (252). See Appendix A for the complete 75-city ranking.
The good news in 2023 vs. 2022 was the 10% drop in homicides across the surveyed cities. Since the massive jump in 2021 after George-Floyd, homicides have fallen the last two years (see Appendix C for full data).
Notable in 2023 was Philadelphia’s 24% decrease in homicides – a fall of 121 murders –which allowed the City of Brotherly Love to drop from the number 2 position in total homicides to number 3. New York City, which dropped 11% in homicides, went up to the second position.
Other key cities which had been battered by violence in 2020 and 2021 also saw drops. For example, New Orleans, Baltimore, St. Louis and Milwaukee all dropped by 20% to 24%.
Two cities were particularly notable for moving in the wrong direction in 2023. Memphis and Washington D.C. had increases in homicides of 37% and 35% respectively. Memphis’ increase of 100 murders pushed the city into 4th-place nationally.
St. Louis, Memphis led the nation in homicide rates
St. Louis’ 20% drop in homicides in 2023 wasn’t enough to help the “Gateway to the West” avoid suffering the nation’s worst homicide rate –60.0 homicides per every 100,000 in population. As mentioned above, Memphis finished second with a rate of 59.3. New Orleans, last year’s top city for homicides per capita, came in third with 52.7 murders per 100,000.
Rounding out the top ten were Baltimore (46.5), Cleveland (42.5), Washington D.C. (40.4), Detroit (39.8), Kansas City (35.6), Milwaukee (30.6), and Oakland (28.9). Those homicide rates are all multiples higher than the 2020 national average of 6.5 per 100,000, the most recent reliable national calculation available.
The list of the cities with the top homicide ratios among America’s 75 largest cities includes those with relatively smaller populations, like Greensboro, New Orleans and Cleveland. It’s worth looking at, then, how their homicide ratios performed in 2023 vs 2022.
Greensboro, NC suffered the worst increase, with its homicide rate jumping 75% to 24.5 per 100,000 – a consequence of the city of 300,000 people experiencing 74 murders in 2023. Memphis also suffered a dramatic jump of nearly 40%.
A majority of America’s most murder-prone cities saw their homicide rates fall. Some declines were modest, such as Cincinnati’s rate falling 9% over the year or Las Vegas’ 12% decline. But a number of other cities experienced far larger drops. Cities like Detroit, Indianapolis, Milwaukee and Baltimore all had their homicide rates drop by nearly 20% or more. New Orleans experienced the biggest drop of 24%, though its 2023 rate was still a sky-high 52.7 per 100,000.
It’s also important to compare homicide rates across the big cities because that’s where most of the nation’s murders occur. Among the nation’s 20 biggest cities, Philadelphia suffered the highest homicide rate of 25.1 per 100,000 residents in 2023. Chicago was second with a rate of 23.2, followed by Dallas at 20.6, Indianapolis at 19.4 and Columbus at 16.2.
Notable is just how low the homicide rate is in many big cities, including Los Angeles, Austin and New York City.
While homicides continue to fall, many city rates are still above 2019 levels
Despite the drop in homicides in most major cities in 2023, homicide rates still remained above those in 2019. Chicago, for example, saw murders drop by nearly 200 compared to its 2021 spike. Nevertheless, its homicide rate remained 25% above that in 2019 (23.2 vs. 18.5). Ditto for New York City’s homicide rate, up 23% over 2019. And Houston’s rate remained 27% higher.
Of the top 15 cities with the highest 2023 homicide rates, 12 were higher than they were in 2019. And eight of those cities had homicide rates that were 60% higher or more compared to 2019. For example, Milwaukee’s 2023 homicide rate of 30.6 was 87% higher than its 2019 rate. And Memphis’ homicide rate of 59.3 was 103% higher.
Looking at the nation’s other murder capital, St. Louis’ homicide rate was 7% lower than in 2019. But that was of little comfort to residents of St. Louis. The rate was dramatically high back then, with the recent drop making little difference.
The continued decline of homicides in 2024
Year-to-date data for 2024 show that homicides are continuing their downward trend this year, with many of the nation’s biggest cities experiencing a drop in total murders of about 30% or more.
Philadelphia has endured far less bloodshed so far in 2024, with homicides dropping 41% compared to the same period in 2023. Jacksonville homicides are down 38%. San Antonio has recorded 61 murders as of the end of July. That’s 29% fewer than the same time last year. Dallas homicides have fallen by 21% YTD.
Chicago officials can also point to a decline in homicides in 2024, but the decrease is one of the smallest among cities with populations over 1 million. Windy City homicides are down just 10% compared to last year – the 2nd-lowest reduction behind only Los Angeles’ 2% decline and just behind New York City’s own 10% reduction.
It’s important to note, however, that while Los Angeles and New York have small declines like Chicago, both those cities experience a far lower number of homicides to begin with.
The DNC in Chicago
Count on Chicago’s leadership to tout the city’s recent decline in homicides as an achievement of the city’s commitment to equity and social justice. Chicago experienced a 12% decline in homicides in 2022, another 13% drop in 2023 and a further 10% reduction so far in 2024.
But that drop in homicides must be taken within the context of the massive surge in murders Chicago experienced post George Floyd. In 2021, they jumped to 804 from just 500 two years earlier, a 62% spike.
And even with the recent declines in homicides, Chicago is still on track in 2024 to exceed its 2019 murder levels, considering that YTD homicides are running 23% higher than they were in the same period in 2019.
Chicago’s murder record must also be compared to that of its two big-city peers: New York and Los Angeles. Chicago is the extreme outlier among the three, especially when viewed on a per capita basis over time.
All three cities had nearly identical homicide rates in the late 1980s before experiencing a decline in homicides during the 1990’s. New York and Los Angeles’ declines were far deeper and more sustained, however, leading to the disparity in homicide rates seen today: Chicago’s 2023 homicide rate, at 23.3 per 100,000, is 5 times higher than New York’s (4.7 per 100,000) and 2.7 times higher than LA’s (8.6 per 100,000).
Even worse, Chicago’s soft-on-crime policies continue to encourage more crime.
Banned police foot and car chases have emboldened criminals to go on robbery sprees. An increased felony-theft threshold has incentivized shoplifting and other crimes. The elimination of cash bail has resulted in a drop in the number of offenders held behind Cook County bars to the lowest level in 40 years. And the overall failure to prosecute crimes of all types has led to an ever-faster revolving door. Criminals are not deterred from committing crimes.
It’s no surprise then, that violent crimes have hit a six-year high in 2024 despite the 10% drop in murders this year, and that the number of victims of violent crime is at a 13-year high.
While the DNC will do its level best to promote Chicago as a triumph of city management and progressive policy, the constant bloodshed is a reminder of the city’s many failures – and an example of criminal justice policies that other cities would do well to ignore.
