- Los Angeles officials have reported a 14% decrease in homicides and a 19% decline in shooting victims compared to 2023. Benefits are reportedly coming from proactive programs like the LAPD’s Community Safety Partnership, seeing a 40% reduction in homicides.
- The LAPD’s transition to the National Incident-Based Reporting System in 2020 has allowed for more detailed crime data collection, improving crime analysis and reporting accuracy.
- Different crime data resources show varying national crime level results, which can add to the politically charged issue.
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Leaders in Los Angeles, the second most populous city in the United States, announced a decrease in crime at a news conference on Monday, March 17. According to the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), homicides have declined around 14% compared with 2023, while the number of shooting victims also declined 19%.
Why did the decline occur?
Officials said the declines are due to programs aimed at some of the city’s troubled housing developments. The developments are where the LAPD’s Community Safety Partnership and the mayor’s Gang Intervention Office “have taken proactive measures to engage residents,” and the areas saw a 40% reduction in homicides.
LAPD Chief Jim McConnell said that while it can be difficult to calculate completely accurate year-by-year comparisons, the system they now use to track crime helps provide more detail, allowing for a precise understanding of crime trends.
“One important factor to remember is that in early 2020 the LAPD transitioned to the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS),” McConnell said, adding, “It fundamentally changes the way crime data is collected and analyzed.”
NIBRS captures data on all offenses within a single incident, providing a more comprehensive view of crime. It includes more data elements, such as victim and offender demographics, relationships and the presence of weapons, enhancing crime analysis and reporting accuracy, while homicide and shooting victims are still manually counted.
Los Angeles joined several other cities throughout the country, transitioning to NIBRS to comply with federal reporting guidelines, including Atlanta, Dallas and Chicago.
What does data say about crime in the US?
When it comes to crime trends across the U.S., different crime data resources show different results.
A recent report from the Council on Criminal Justice, a nonpartisan think tank that gathers data from individual law enforcement agencies, found the number of homicides across the U.S. declined by 16% in 2024.
But the latest data from the National Crime Victimization Survey indicates an increase in crime over the last four years.
FBI crime data became a contentious issue in October 2024, when the agency revised its data from a 2% decrease in 2022 to a 4% increase that year.
Crime as a national political issue
According to Gallup’s annual crime survey, 78% of Republicans believe crime is an extremely or very serious problem in the U.S., while 35% of Democrats agree.
