ST. LOUIS — Crime is down in St. Louis.
I wrote those words in August 2021, and they were true. After a pandemic spike in homicides that was similar to what other cities in America experienced as our downtowns emptied, the trend was moving in the right direction in St. Louis.
There were still too many killings. But crime was dropping and that’s a good thing.
Crime is down in St. Louis.
I wrote those words again in November 2022, and they were true, then, too. Other than a rash of car thefts spurred by flaws in Kia and Hyundai vehicles, crime was again trending in the right direction. Homicides were down again, though they’d end the year about even with the year before.
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There were still too many killings. But crime was dropping and that’s a good thing.
Crime is down in St. Louis.
That’s the conclusion of a Post-Dispatch analysis of crime numbers as of August this year published on the front page of the newspaper on Thursday. Homicides are down 22% from this time last year, a precipitous drop so large that such a year-by-year decrease hasn’t been seen since the 1930s.
Assaults are down. Burglaries are down. Crime is dropping and that’s a good thing.
Crime numbers are never absolute. That’s one of the things I’ve learned from University of Missouri-St. Louis criminologist Richard Rosenfeld over the years. They go up and down; the research is often not clear as to why things are happening. Just last week, Rosenfeld was offering insights into why crime might be spiking in some cities — Washington, D.C., Memphis, Tennessee, and Kansas City — while dropping in others.
“The reason we are seeing homicide rates coming down is the unraveling of the conditions that brought the rates up to their highest points during the pandemic,†Rosenfeld said. He offers a similar explanation for the drop in crime in St. Louis. People are getting out and about. Hiring is up. Kids are back at school.
Here’s what happens every time I write about crime numbers: There will be a high-profile murder, perhaps even before the ink is dry on the print version of this column. Heck, the murder story might even appear on page 2, in the space below my column. And my commenters and e-mailers, the ones who use rising crime to create fear and suggest NOBODY goes downtown anymore will send me a note saying St. Louis is doomed.
Sometimes it’s because they just don’t like Mayor Tishaura O. Jones, the first Black female mayor of St. Louis, even though crime is dropping on her watch. Often, it’s because they want to beat the drum for more police spending, even though spending for police is always up; and even with fewer officers than used to exist in the city (because of the same hiring challenges facing every major city in America), St. Louis still has more police officers per capita than most, and, yes, crime is down.
Rosenfeld told me once that he’s a “both-and†sort of person when it comes to crime research. He believes that some police reform has driven drops in crime because it increases trust between communities of color and police officers; and he also believes that targeted policing in high-crime neighborhoods, and strategies such as focused deterrence, also might be having an impact.
It’s OK to celebrate the reduction in crime in St. Louis and also admit we don’t really know why it’s dropping, and we still have a long way to go.
Earlier this year Jones and her fellow regional leaders, including the East-West Gateway Council of Governments, convened a crime summit to try to get leaders throughout the St. Louis region — its city and suburbs, including those in Illinois — to come up with a comprehensive strategy to reduce homicides. Those leaders are still talking. They are applying to work with the founded by author and researcher Thomas Abt. Like Rosenfeld, Abt believes that multiple strategies are necessary to reduce crime.
That includes an effort by Jones and the Board of Aldermen to pass laws that will allow police to try to reduce the number of guns on the street. City leaders already passed one bill sponsored by Cara Spencer targeting young people carrying guns, and now Jones is pushing more legislation, including bills that might outlaw some assault weapons. It includes anti-poverty efforts. It includes targeting police efforts in certain high-profile neighborhoods, such as downtown. It includes hiring street-level “interrupters†to try to stop crime before it happens.
Some of these things will work. Some won’t. But that is an issue for another day.
Crime is down in St. Louis. Say it because it’s true.