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Homicides and violent crimes in the U.S. overall are down significantly, according to FBI data
Northeastern criminologist James Alan Fox says murders in the U.S. have been declining for three decades — and Americans are generally unaware of the trend.
The US is experiencing a significant decline in homicides nationwide, according to FBI data.
Murder rates are also falling in many major cities, including Boston, which saw the largest drop of any major US city in the first three months of 2024.
From June 10, Boston police said four homicides in the city this year, compared to 18 at the same time a year ago.
The declining numbers are not an aberration, says the Northeastern University criminologist James Alan Fox, who notes that murders in the US have been declining for three decades. And yet Americans are generally unaware of the trend, he says.
“National Gun Violence Awareness Month [currently ongoing] it's the right time for the public to realize the improvement,” says Fox, who has studied murder for four decades. “But the word isn't getting out.”
Homicides across the US fell 26.4% overall in the first quarter of 2024, according to FBI datawhich was released on June 10. Violent crime overall — including rape, aggravated assault and robbery — fell by more than 15 percent during that time.
Fox says Boston's homicide rate is lower than most major U.S. cities for several reasons, including:
- The gun ownership rate in Massachusetts is 14%, which is the lowest in the US and is complemented by some of the strongest gun laws in the country.
- A relatively cool climate. (Fox research shows that crime tends to increase in hot weather.)
- A large number of emergency rooms and trauma centers in the city.
“It's also true that Massachusetts has the highest percentage of well-educated people in the country,” adds Fox, the Lipman Family Professor of Criminology, Law and Public Policy at Northeastern. “Educated people found to be less likely to commit homicide.”Jacob Stowellassociate professor of criminology and criminal justice at Northeastern, also credits Boston Mayor Michelle Wu for emphasizing crime reduction.
“There was a lot more community involvement — a lot more stakeholders and people at the table who should have been at the table for a long time,” Stowell says. “When you see big declines like this, it's the result of a confluence of factors, any one of which would be beneficial, working in concert.”
These factors play out in neighboring cities, Stowell adds.
“Nationally, the Northeast is outpacing all other regions in decline,” Stowell says. “So there's definitely something involved here that's not just related to Boston, but it could be the Northeast.”
Fox and Stowell predict the homicide rate will rise this summer as temperatures rise and young people are let out of school. Even so, both experts expect homicides in Boston to decline overall this year from a record low of 37 in 2023.
“We're averaging far fewer murders in Boston than in the early 1990s, when there were 152 a year,” Fox says.
US crime promises to be a important issue in the November presidential election. A Gallup poll in November showed this 63% of Americans describe the crime problem in the US as extremely or very serious, up from 54% last measured in 2021.
Fox says homicide rate increases tend to get more media coverage than current decreases.
“You know the saying, 'no news is good news?' says Fox. “It turns out that good news is not news. And bad news is big news.”
Fox says media coverage of the crime reduction would help “assuage some of the public's fear.”
“There's a huge fear,” he says.
No public mass killings in 2024
In another telling indicator, mass murders in the US are also on the decline. In 2024, there were 11 mass shootings resulting in four or more deaths — a decrease of more than 50% compared to last year. There have been no mass killings in public this year, according to the Associated Press/USA TODAY/Northeastern University Mass Murder Database, the most extensive source of data on the subject. The last public mass killing occurred in October in Lewiston, Maine, where a man killed 18 people at a bowling alley and restaurant.
“The average public mass killing in the US is about six a year, so I'm confident we'll see an overall decline for 2024,” says Fox, who chairs the Mass Murder Database. “But there are virtually no media reports about it.
“Last year in March there was a 2% increase. [in mass killings] and I saw a lot of coverage of this in the newspapers and on television — that it was growing,” says Fox. “But now that there is a big reduction? Silence.”
“A uniquely American phenomenon”
Fox says violent crime in the US peaked in the early 1990s amid the crack cocaine epidemic.
“That spike was driven by a crack,” says Fox. “Back then they were recruiting kids to sell crack because of the perception that if they were caught as minors, nothing really bad would happen to them.”
Fox says the declining market for crack cocaine has accelerated the ongoing, long-term decline in homicide rates. Fox notes that the three-decade trend has been marked by a few blips — most recently in 2020, when a 30 percent increase in U.S. homicides was due to the disruptions and concerns of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Since then we've seen a downward slide,” says Fox. “It's technically referred to as reversion to the mean. But I prefer to call it forensic gravity: What goes up must come down.”
Fox and Stowell emphasize the need to acknowledge the improving climate while highlighting the larger concerns about gun violence in the US.
“Although the homicide numbers are down, we still have a gun homicide rate that is higher than the overall homicide rate of other Western countries,” Fox says.
“Homicide by firearms is a uniquely American phenomenon,” Stowell adds.
Fox sees public fear as a casualty of America's gun problem. He says information and perspective can help combat that fear. One area of focus for Fox is the issue of school shootings.
K-12 School Shooting Database Shows US Record 348 school shootings in 2023notes.
“But only 9 percent of those shootings happened inside the school,” Fox says. “And more than 70% of fatal shootings since 2010 have occurred at night, on weekends or in the summer, when schools are closed.”
ONE Gallup survey Last summer it showed that 38% of parents of school-age children feared for their child's physical safety while at school, one of the highest figures since 1977.
“In fact, the average number of students killed at school by an assailant is seven per year,” says Fox.
By comparison, 26 students are killed annually in accidents while commuting to school, he says.
“Every school shooting is a tragedy, and one school shooting is one too many,” Fox says. “But parents are afraid of their child sitting in a classroom and a gunman comes in and shoots — and then they see 348 shootings in one year at school and it gives them their worst fear.
“When in reality most of these shootings didn't happen at school,” Fox says. “A gun fired on school property is different from a school shooting.”
Ian Thomsen is a reporter for Northeastern Global News. Email him at i.thomsen@northeastern.edu. Follow him on X/Twitter @IanatNU.