What was Chicago's official homicide total in 2023 and 2024?

1. Why three different 2023 numbers show up and which one is the city’s official count?

The Chicago Police Department issued a January 2024 press release stating 617 homicides in 2023, a 12.9% decrease from 2022 and the lowest yearly total since 2019, and that figure is widely quoted in contemporaneous local coverage ^{[1] [2]}. Independent summaries repeated the 617 total and framed it in context — a decline from the prior two years but still high by longer-term standards ^{[2] [3]}. A separate non-government compilation listed 499 homicides for 2023, but that dataset relied on local media and agency websites and acknowledged methodological differences that can produce lower tallies when researchers apply narrower definitions or incomplete feeds ^[4]. The authoritative city total for 2023 is 617 as reported by the Chicago Police Department; alternative 2023 numbers reflect divergent data collection methods or provisional counts ^{[1] [4]}.

2. The puzzle of 2024 — preliminary tallies, datasets, and analyst estimates collide

For 2024, sources diverge. A Center for Public Safety Initiatives report compiled unofficial figures and reported 573 homicides in 2024, an increase from their own 2023 figure of 499 but not aligned with the CPD’s 2023 official number ^[4]. A January 2025 city review and other year-in-review pieces also reported 573 homicides in 2024, presenting it as a decline from some previously cited 2023 totals such as 620 or 804 in certain reports — those higher 2023 figures stem from differing vintage snapshots or broader categorizations of violent deaths ^{[5] [6]}. Chicago’s public crime datasets are updated daily but flagged as preliminary and subject to change; extracting an annual homicide count from those files requires careful filtering and can yield different counts depending on classification choices and timing of updates ^{[7] [8]}.

3. Why official and independent counts diverge — definitions, timing, and agency disclaimers matter

Discrepancies among sources arise from three consistent causes: differing definitions of “homicide” versus other violent deaths, timing (some tallies freeze data at different dates), and agency disclaimers about preliminary records that are later revised ^{[7] [8]}. The CPD press release emphasizes a final year-end tally and clearance rates, while independent projects sometimes compile rolling totals from municipal feeds or media reports that exclude late-reported cases or reclassifications, producing lower or higher counts ^{[1] [4]}. The City’s open-crime dataset explicitly warns data are preliminary and should not be used for strict year-to-year comparisons, which explains how researchers can legitimately produce variant annual totals from the same underlying incidents ^{[7] [8]}.

4. Reconciling the record — what a conservative reading of the evidence shows

A conservative reconciliation treats the Chicago Police Department’s January 2024 release as the official source for 2023 — 617 homicides — because it is the city’s own year-end accounting and was cited by multiple contemporaneous reports ^{[1] [2]}. For 2024, the balance of available secondary reports and end-of-year reviews in the material provided point to 573 homicides as the most commonly reported total among non-city compilations and some later reviews, but that 2024 figure comes from analyses that may rely on provisional datasets and should be treated as an independently compiled estimate pending a formal city release or final state UCR submission ^{[4] [5]}.

5. What to watch next — how to verify and where discrepancies usually resolve

Future resolution typically occurs when the Chicago Police Department or Illinois Uniform Crime Reporting system posts final, reconciled year-end totals or when major research centers publish updated analyses that reconcile preliminary feeds with later reclassifications; until then, researchers should expect variance across sources driven by reclassifications, late case closures, and methodological choices ^{[1] [8]}. For immediate confirmation, consult the CPD’s official releases and the City’s “Homicides” dataset with careful year-and-offense filtering; for independent comparison, review analyst reports that document their inclusion rules — sources that disclose methodology most transparently will best explain any gap between 617 for 2023 (city official) and the commonly reported 573 for 2024 in the provided materials ^{[1] [4] [7]}.