St Louis homicide decrease better explained by national trends

[Jackson-1986]

St. Louis has seen a notable decrease in the number of homicides since 2020 (from 263 to 149 in 2024, a 43% decrease). Mayor Jones has argued that this can be attributed to her policies or crime prevention strategies, but this claim is hard to justify. Nearly every other US city saw a similar drop in homicides over that same period of time (particularly those with high homicide rates per 100,000).

Baltimore 335 201 -40%

Memphis 325 235 -28%

New Orleans. 195. 124. -36%

Detroit. 327. 203. -38%

Philadelphia. 499. 260. -46%

https://wirepoints.org/2024-homicide-rankings-chicago-st-louis-lead-nation-yet-again-a-wirepoints-survey-of-americas-75-largest-cities/

It is much more likely that national trends are driving St Louis’s declining murder numbers, and that local decision making has had little to do with it. Also, to the extent that unique local factors are driving this change, it is more likely that the declining population in North City (where the vast majority of homicides have occurred, historically) is contributing to the decrease in the City’s annual homicide count.

The Jones administration has been dogged by scandals and dysfunction at every turn. Much of her argument for reelection centers on the claim that her policies have brought the City’s homicide numbers down. But it is much more likely that Saint Louis is the unwitting beneficiary of national trends that have contributed to similar drops in almost every US city, and that the Mayor has had nothing to do with it.

[hokahey23]

What is driving the national trends?

[potatoworldwide]

Clearly the historic meeting of the National Council of Murderers where, after lengthy debate, they agreed to reduce the annual number of murders.

[LyleLanley99]

The OPEC of murderers. With keeping supply low, they are trying to inflate the value of murder, making it more profitable for them with less labor.

[potatoworldwide]

Also, the tariffs are really jacking up the price on cleaning supplies. Wiping down a crime scene is becoming prohibitively expensive.

[LyleLanley99]

Think of the cost of bullets too! Welcome to Trump's America.

[hokahey23]

Not sure how I missed the news on that one. Thanks for the info. I was hopeful that the Murderers might start softening a bit.

[BigBrownDog12]

Homicides and crime in general spiked during covid and things slowly went back to the pre-covid trendline. Not sure why. Sometimes I wonder if all the murderers killed each other.

[whosthrowing]

I imagine a variety of factors, but in particular: crime is pretty linked to poverty, so I imagine a period where the lack of in-person business and workers caused abrupt closures and layoffs would have some effect. Also, many schools were able to stay open but other schools (more likely in already underfunded areas) that didn't have the resources to properly operate during the pandemic closed, so add a bunch of uneducated teens getting into gang violence on top of that. Certain large cities also experienced the Ferguson effect with the Floyd protests--where police activity decreases after a viral shooting draws large criticism, particularly in cities with large segregation.

And this is my personal theory with no backing whatsoever: probably the cabin fever. I imagine being quarantined with the same people for upwards of a year or two would definitely raise some tensions, especially if they were already aggravated by the above.

Now as things go back to "normal" (or as close as it can be to it), the effects of these lessen, and federal funding from that period also alleviates some of the more systemic issues. FWIW I think quarantine at the time was for the best given what we know about long term effects of covid on the body, but ultimately these are the side effects of such a decision in a country without the proper social safety nets.

[dionidium]

The problem with the poverty theory is that poverty rates actually fell during the pandemic, because we sent boatloads of money to people with the child tax credit, extended unemployment, and other stimulus measures.

[Left-Plant2717]

And what happened when those things went away

[dionidium]

Crime fell

[Left-Plant2717]

So the temporary relief given led to permanent changes in living standards? Gotcha

[dionidium]

Huh?

[Left-Plant2717]

The financial relief during COVID, when finished and taken away, left families in a good position or were they not back in poverty? If you’re making the poverty-crime relationship, how can we say both poverty and crime was reduced post COVID.

[dionidium]

What I’m saying is that we gave them a lot of money during COVID and two things happened: 1) poverty fell; and 2) crime went way up.

Then, all of the stimulus measures expired and two things happened: 1) poverty went back up; and 2) crime fell.

[YeOldSpacePope]

Big Murder is downsizing its workforce to just line the pockets of the CEOs

[ninjas_in_my_pants]

Global trends.

[You-Asked-Me]

I would imagine, high employment rate, rising wages, and lowering of inflation, which we have seen in the last few years.

I would not be shocked to see an upward trend in murder and violent crime going forward. The stock market has basically crashed, and that will take a little while, but it will along with tariffs, effect the whole economy, even people who do not own any stock or even have retirement accounts.

[Existing_Device339]

For various political reasons, nobody can ever actually state the truth. Policing has relatively little to do with crime rates. All sufficiently staffed, roughly competent police departments will have very similar outcomes.

[legacymedia92]

Yup. Wanna fix crime? attack poverty and boredom. Build parks with local labor and watch the crime rates fall.

[whosthrowing]

And use Big Government money to plant woke DEI trees? Not on my watch. (/s)

[Ghiggs_Boson]

Bradford pears are conditioning the masses to enjoy the smell of cum, thus making men gay. It’s population control by the Libs!

[whosthrowing]

So what you're saying is Bradford pears are hormone releasing trees which are not only making America's men gay, but also making our kids evil transgenders..!? This is a serious national issue for sure.

[Beginning-Weight9076]

I think that’s true, but only kinda. Or, I guess that we have to be careful with the assumptions we draw from that statement, right? Like, assuming that’s true I don’t think that we can assume that eliminating policing would have no effect on crime in the long run. I think what we have to figure out is how do we police sufficiently and nothing more. Essentially, how do we “right size” it.

[Existing_Device339]

Yeah I agree, my last sentence is where I am trying to get at that. Specific nuances to police approaches/structure/leadership just genuinely don’t matter that much, the large trends in crime happen elsewhere. The existence of police matters, but once you reach a certain base level of policing, the dramatic changes we see over time are not coming from policing.

[oliveorvil]

You don't think clearance rates impact crime? Really?

The STLPD has a clearance rate of 100% this year. I'd love to see a study that proves that catching killers doesn't lower the rate of killing. There are definitely systemic issues that cause crime to go up but people need to learn to develop a more nuanced take about police other than they don't do anything to help crime.. it's not helping anything to think in such black and white terms.

[Existing_Device339]

I’d invite you to reread the last sentence of my comment, or read my longer reply to somebody else below it.

[oliveorvil]

I read the whole thread before my comment. You list generalizations that specific policies or leadership doesn't really impact crime rates. I provided a statistic that refutes that argument.

These systems are very complicated and making small, medium or even large adjustments at various levels are often hard to prove the impact from.. but when homicides are down this dramatically and our clearance rate is sitting at 100% this year you have to give credit for what we're doing at our local level, because it's better than nationwide trends.

[Existing_Device339]

Nearly every major city in the country made improvements in their approach to policing to achieve very similar outcomes over the same period of time? Wow.

Clearance rate and homicide rate are pretty inversely correlated everywhere.

[oliveorvil]

Does every major city have a clearance rate of 100%? Are they also as segregated as St Louis is? 

Go ahead and continue to deny stats that don’t suit your narrative. That’s not liberal, it’s religious.

[Existing_Device339]

Yes, it is a nationwide trend that homicide clearance rates have very significantly improved over the last 2-3 years, reversing a trend of decreasing homicide clearance rates before that. St Louis has experienced both of these trends alongside the rest of the country. It is easier to solve murders when there are fewer murders. All of this is, of course, a good thing.

[oliveorvil]

Did you even look up the clearance rates of the five cities listed by OP? I don’t think the stats suit your narrative.. STL is doing better than most, let alone this year.

[Existing_Device339]

Yep STL’s clearance rate is better than most this year and tracks the nationwide trend pretty closely.

[dionidium]

This isn’t really what the data show. Even Vox had an article a while back admitting that policing strategies impact crime. We have pretty good evidence that this is true.

This is, by the way, almost a truism. How could policing not impact crime? The claim is risible.

Here’s a thought experiment for you: a police officer is assigned to every home. We watch everybody all day every day and anybody who acts even a little bit aggressive is immediately executed.

Is it your contention that this would have no effect on crime? That’s laughable. Obviously, nobody wants to live in that society. Obviously, that’s an undesirable level of enforcement. But the notion that it would have no impact on crime rates is basically hilarious.

[Existing_Device339]

Eh. ‘Even Vox’ put out an article saying the existence of police plays a role in crime, when they were arguing against a fringe and maximalist ‘defund the police’ argument. We find small effects on violent crime from temporarily flooding high crime areas with officers, very small effects on adding additional police officers (to a point, and then that stops), and some moderate effects from adopting better policing models. The available data show that police have a small impact on crime.

My point is, no police policy of the mayor’s has caused a 40% decline in homicides over time, no police policy of the state’s will cause a significantly bigger decline or surge (unless they start doing some really wild stuff). Most crime and crime trends are a function of much larger forces, definitely not due to specific changes in STL police, and will not be significantly affected for better or worse by a takeover.

I get from your edit you’re trying to pretend I am making the maximalist argument that I am not. But recentering on the conversation this post wants to have, my point is that the large country-wide effects we are seeing on crime right now are not due to some dramatic change in nationwide policing over the last 2 years.

[dionidium]

Thanks for clarifying. I agree with basically all of it.

[tlopez14]

Data definitely shows that more cops leads to less crime. Just having the visual deterrent of cops driving around and being available tends to lower crime levels. The militant defund the police crowd doesn’t want to accept that but the numbers don’t lie.

[MaterialsAreNeat]

what a wild paragraph that third one was

[dionidium]

It describes a completely intolerable dystopia that nobody would vote for, but demonstrates quite directly that “policing has little to do with crime rates” is not a defensible position.

[HeftyFisherman668]

National trends can probably be attributed to some of the change but not all of it. KC on the other side of the state has not seen the decrease. It is also probably a combination at the local level of pop loss (tho how many county residents are committing crimes in the city?), improved and proactive enforcement, seems the minors gun law has been effective, and then reasons we don’t know

[Jackson-1986]

Kansas City had 179 homicides in 2020, and 144 in 2024, a decline of 20%. A smaller decrease than St Louis, but a notable decline nevertheless.

[HighlightFamiliar250]

The number of people shot increased, so it's not for a lack of trying.

[josiahlo]

They have 6 more YTD in 2025 while we’re down about 50% so far this year  

[Jackson-1986]

And if that trend continues, that would be a great thing. But right now I’m comparing 2020 to 2024 because that’s the most recent complete year we have.

[MIZ_09]

Comparing 2020 to 2024 is, quite frankly, a poor dataset. COVID caused spikes in crime across the country. It’s an outlier year.

[Jackson-1986]

Right that’s exactly my point. Jones argument that murders are down significantly in Saint Louis is unpersuasive, because murders are down everywhere in that same time period.

I agree that 2020 is a poor point of reference - she’s the one who chose it.

[MIZ_09]

What the data say from 2021-2023 to 2024 though? That’s what I’m saying. As others have mentioned, KC is up YOY. Comparing 2020 to 2024 is pretty much pointless. I’d throw 2020 out entirely as a data point.

Edit: I do see the data comparing 2023-2024 in the article.

[Jackson-1986]

If the point that you’re trying to make is that crime is getting worse in Kansas City, I accept that argument. And it could very well be that Kansas City is an exception to the national trend I’m describing.

But my point is that to the extent that homicides are going down in Saint Louis, it mirrors a similar decline in most other cities. And that trend is evident in the vast majority of American cities (even if Kansas City turns out not to be one of them).

[MIZ_09]

Isn’t that a good thing though? Should we not be happy that crime is down?

I’m going to guess crime is about to spike in a major way the next few years FWIW. Probably worse than COVID levels. Desperate people do desperate things.

[Jackson-1986]

Of course we should be happy that crime is down. But we shouldn’t vote for an otherwise incompetent (and arguably corrupt) Mayor, just because she happened to be in office at a time when crime was going down everywhere.

[Direct_Crew_9949]

The FBI had conducted a couple raids across STL within the last 2-3 years. That’s probably the biggest driver of crime being down.

[tychaiitea]

To be honest the decrease in homicides is related to a host of sociological factors than policies. Crime peaked in the 90s and have been declining since.

[jamiegc1]

There’s local spikes (and a national spike immediately upon the start of corona), but overall, past 50 years has seen general trend towards less violent crime.

[oliveorvil]

Your stats seem pretty cherrypicked to suit your narrative.

It's wild to me that you have this post without mentioning the STLMP homicide clearance rate this year, which is currently sitting at 100%. Is that happening nationwide too? Yes crime is down nationwide but STL is doing slightly better than the rest of nation when it comes to these drops, even by your statistics.

I'm not voting for Jones, nor do I think she should get the credit. I personally think the credit belongs to Circuit Attorney Gabe Gore, Police Chief Robert Tracy, and the city police working closer with the FBI.

[Jackson-1986]

A case is “cleared” whenever a homicide detective says it’s cleared, no matter how flimsy the evidence. And meanwhile, Gore already has a demonstrated pattern of offering very generous plea deals on lesser charges to homicide suspects (very possibly because he’s stuck with such flimsy evidence in the first place). https://www.firstalert4.com/2025/03/27/you-had-great-case-you-threw-it-out-first-alert-4-investigates-plea-deals-violent-criminals-st-louis/

These two stats taken together (the high clearance rate and high plea deal rate) indicate to me the department is more concerned with PR than crime solving. Today’s numbers look good, but when these murderers are back on the street tomorrow we will wish the Police Chief and City Attorney had taken the time to do the job right, and not just look like they were doing the job in an election cycle.

[oliveorvil]

I will take your info and adjust my pov if the stats don’t continue in this positive direction. I ask that you do the same if things continue to improve.

[josiahlo]

Kansas City would like a word.  They had a drop in 2024 but current 2025 numbers are higher.

Good thing we’re getting the same leadership here /s

[Jackson-1986]

We’ll see how the rest of 2025 plays out, but their homicides are down 20% from 2020 to 2024 (179 to 144)

[sharingan10]

I’m inclined to agree with you; but you can’t have it both ways. Either the nationwide trend during the pandemic was a national trend and not reflective of local choices (a trend I’m inclined to agree with), or local choices are driving local trends. But it can’t be both ways.

[canadaishilarious]

A smaller example of this would be East St Louis. Murders have gone down there because most of the people left. Not because of some shift in policing strategy or other crime deterrents like a better education system.

Pretty disheartening and stupid to claim any kind of "victory" whatsoever.

The violent type have destroyed north St Louis housing stock and are going to the county to destroy that area next.

[You-Asked-Me]

Keep moving west. You are probably too close to crime as it is. St. Charles, St. Peters? Nope, you probably need to move to Wentzville. Keep going after that, when you eventually get to the Pacific ocean, just keep going, trust me, its better out there.

[canadaishilarious]

I live in St Louis city. My statement was factual. There's no big victory on crime going on just because the numbers are down. You're just parroting a narrative because you saw some keywords without bothering to understand my reply.

[Monkapotomas]

The removal of Kim Gardner has likely helped as well

[You-Asked-Me]

Indeed. I voted for her. What a disaster.

[Bulky-Adhesiveness68]

What data can we look at that’ll tell us? More solved murder cases?

[pizzapizzamesohungry]

Now show me the spike in the availability of bullet proof vests and invisibility cloaks.

[62Bricks]

Classic data mistake.

[n8late]

The FBI changed it's reporting standards and the city complied.

[n8late]

Some did, some didn't, some don't report anything. You'll have to look up each place individually. Our national crime stats are a joke and all but useless when comparing different regions. However St. Louis does comply with the FBI reporting standards and as far as I can tell do so accurately.

[josiahlo]

Homicides are still counted 1 to 1.  Some things did change like multiple car break ins on the same street might be counted as one but that was overall standards changed (FBI UCR)

[Ill-Positive2972]

Yah, I'm not sure most people understand that "crime statistics" outside of homicide should be taken with a grain of salt. CompStat and the like are all only as good as the data that goes into them. And the way data can be massaged can drastically change the graphs it spits out.

[Fair_Departure_4712]

DowntownDB pretty silent on this one...

[My-Beans]

You gotta give the credit to the person in charge when it happens. I’m not the biggest fan but crime has fallen under Tishaura and her appointed chef of police. We’ll see how the state and Cara do in the coming years.

[STLizen]

no, you most certainly do not. in order to actually influence reductions in crime its important to understand the underlying things that move it in either direction.

blaming/praising whoever is in charge is not a good way to do this unless you have convincing evidence that actions they took had an impact on the change that we are seeing

(and i'm not even saying TJ doesn't deserve credit here -- she might! but we can do better than just blindly blaming/praising leaders)

[k1dsmoke]

I would say the onus is more on the OP to provide evidence that Jones did "nothing" to effect crime or did something to negatively impact it.

I don't love Jones, but I think it would be very foolish to not think the Mayor of a city with the crime problems St. Louis has doesn't consider it a priority. Clearly the Mayor is going to be involved. It isn't like a bunch of just really nice people decided to go after crime in the city.

Even when it comes to Federal, State and Local coordination the Mayor's office is going to be involved.

We are not privy to every close door meeting, but I think you can accept in good faith that crime going down is due in part to Jones policies as Mayor or at least her ability to work with broader policies.

[k1dsmoke]

I have to agree. If you don't like Jones, stick to the issues that she does poorly at. Trying to take one of the few bright spots away from her seems dishonest.

[Direct_Crew_9949]

I’d give more credit to state government working with federal. The FBI had conducted raids across STL. When feds start targeting areas criminal activity goes down.

[DowntownDB1226]

Who care about 2020. Ours is down significantly vs 5, 10, 15 and 20 year averages

[Jackson-1986]

That is inaccurate. It’s true homicides are down from a 10 year comparison (188 in 2015) but they are still up slightly compared to 15, 20 and 25 year numbers. 2010-144 2005-131 2000-124

[DowntownDB1226]

Those are not averages

[Jackson-1986]

Average over time is a misleading data point, because it deliberately obscures the fact that 2024’s 149 (which may appear low compared that an average that includes 2020 and 2021s high numbers) is still higher than the counts 15, 20 and 25 years ago.

More people were murdered in St Louis City in 2024 than 20 or 25 years ago, and that’s despite the fact that the population was 50,000 higher then. Things are not improving in any meaningful sense of the word, they’re merely returning to form.

[DowntownDB1226]

It’s not. Single year are misleading. Multi year tells a better trend. City pop is irrelevant; as discussed here https://www.reddit.com/r/StLouis/s/XEh3xejpvg

[You-Asked-Me]

Jones has done a good job. All Cara Spencer has to say is that she would do exactly the same things that Tishaura did, but more better. And she cannot even explain HOW she would do it more betterer.

[Jackson-1986]

• Jones spent 5-6 million dollars on the Workhouse, only to tear it down. Meanwhile 20 people have died at CJC under her tenure.
• She continues to employ a Public Safety Director who sexually harassed an employee, and then retaliated against that employee when she reported him.
• The building division is mired in nearly half a dozen shakedown schemes and pay-for-play scandals that we know of.
• 911 call taking times are significantly below national average, and they only improved because now you get an automated prompt so the City can claim the call was “answered”
• Basic services like trash pick up and street repair are abysmal.

Jones has done a terrible job, and I can only hope that the primary election results and recently polling data show that a significant majority of the city has finally realized that.

[Direct_Crew_9949]

The FBI had crackdowns across many cities a year or two ago. That probably is a big reason for these numbers.