How do per‑capita homicide rates in 2024 compare to 2019 across major U.S. cities (FBI UCR tables)?
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Executive summary
Across aggregated FBI UCR reporting, national and many large-city homicide rates in 2024 were generally at or below 2019 levels, but important exceptions and data caveats mean the picture differs by city and reporting method [1][2]. Independent analysts find modest net declines in homicide counts for cohorts of large cities in 2024 versus 2019 while warning that agency revisions and reporting gaps complicate direct city‑by‑city per‑capita comparisons [2][3].
1. What the FBI tables show at a glance: broad declines versus 2019
The FBI’s UCR summary for 2024 reports overall declines in violent crime and indicates that many measures—including homicides—have fallen since their peak in 2020–2021, with the 2024 national homicide picture improving relative to the pandemic-era surge [1]. Independent tracking of a set of major cities by the Council on Criminal Justice found 6% fewer homicides in its study cities in 2024 compared with 2019 and a 16% drop in homicides from 2023 to 2024 among 29 cities that reported homicide data for both years, signaling a net per‑capita improvement for many large-city cohorts [2].
2. City-level variation: many cities down, some still higher than 2019
While aggregate and cohort metrics improved, the decline is not uniform: the Council on Criminal Justice explicitly notes that several high‑homicide cities—named examples include Baltimore, Detroit, and St. Louis—continued to show elevated homicide rates relative to 2019 even as many other cities moved to 2019 or lower levels, so per‑capita outcomes vary substantially by city [2]. The FBI’s expanded homicide tables for prior years (e.g., 2019) provide the historical baselines for these comparisons but must be paired with 2024 submissions for each jurisdiction to compute precise city‑by‑city per‑capita rate changes [4][5].
3. Methodological and data‑quality caveats that matter to any 2019–2024 comparison
Comparisons across years rely on agencies reporting complete data to the UCR/NIBRS systems; the FBI’s 2024 report and other observers note that all 50 states are NIBRS certified but that reporting differences, late submissions, and the FBI’s own revisions to previously released figures complicate year‑to‑year percentage-change calculations [1][3]. The Council on Criminal Justice and other analysts emphasize that the FBI revised figures without full public explanation in 2024, making direct comparisons and political narratives based on raw year‑to‑year UCR percentages subject to dispute [3].
4. What can be said reliably with the available UCR material
It is supportable to say that many major-city cohorts recorded fewer homicides in 2024 than in 2019, and several authoritative summaries point to modest net declines in homicides across the set of reporting cities [2][1]. It is also supportable to say that some individual high‑homicide cities remained worse off in 2024 than in 2019, and that analysts caution against treating a single national headline as representative for every city [2]. The FBI’s Crime Data Explorer and the published UCR tables are the primary sources for city-level counts and rates, but extracting per‑capita changes requires matching each city’s homicide count to its population denominator for each year using those tables [6][4].
5. Political and analytical implications: why the debate persists
The divergence between headline national trends and localized exceptions has fed political contention: observers note that public perceptions of crime and competing federal measures (UCR vs. NCVS) have diverged, and that revisions to UCR figures in 2024 intensified debate about what the numbers mean for policy and elections [3]. Analysts and advocacy groups therefore warn that selective use of city or national slices of the UCR tables can support conflicting narratives, so responsible reporting requires citing the exact jurisdictions, per‑capita denominators, and whether counts come from NIBRS or legacy reporting methods [3][7].
6. Limits of this analysis and next steps for precise city comparisons
The available sources establish the overall direction of change—many cities down, some up—but do not supply a complete, ready‑made table here of 2019 versus 2024 per‑capita homicide rates for every major city; producing that requires pulling city-level counts and population figures from the FBI’s Crime Data Explorer or the UCR expanded homicide tables and computing rates year‑over‑year [6][4]. Given the FBI’s acknowledged reporting transitions and revisions, any definitive city‑by‑city ranking should note reporting completeness and whether values come from NIBRS or SRS submissions [1][3].