The shocking rise in murders that began in the summer of 2020 looks as if it may have played out. In the nearly complete tally of 2022 homicide statistics from 93 US cities compiled by AH Datalytics, murder and non-negligent manslaughter was down 5% from the year before.
In the absence of full national data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which may never be available in reliable form given the continuing debacle that is the agency’s new National Incident Based Reporting System, such partial accounts are all we have to go by. At least they all more or less agree: For the 70 US city and county law enforcement agencies that report to the Major Cities Chiefs Association, the 2022 homicide decline was 5.4%. In national mortality data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that appears to be complete through July, homicides were down 4.6% in the first seven months of the year from the same period in 2021.
