Murders down this year in Pittsburgh, many U.S. cities, report says

Pittsburgh’s homicide rate is down in 2023 but still higher than its pre-pandemic levels, a trend mirrored in violent crime rates in 37 U.S. cities, according to a report from the Council on Criminal Justice.

Homicides in the city plunged 34% in the first half of 2023, compared to the same six-month period in 2022, three authors reported in the CCJ study, which was released this week.

“Both the big Pennsylvania cities, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, have seen homicides decline,” said Richard Rosenfeld, the CCJ study’s lead author and a retired criminology professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. “Pittsburgh doesn’t divert from the pack when it comes to major crimes.”

Pittsburgh Police officials on Friday confirmed some of CCJ’s findings.

There have been 28 homicides reported this year from Jan. 1 through June 30, compared to 40 at this time in 2022, Public Safety Spokeswoman Cara Cruz said. There were 33 in the first half of 2021.

“Pittsburgh is in line with this trend at the moment,” Cruz said. “We’re thankful for that.”

Nationwide, there was more than a 9% drop in the homicide rate in cities surveyed, the study said. Raleigh saw a 59% drop in homicides in 2023. The homicide rate in Nashville dropped 2%.

Homicides, however, both in Pittsburgh and nationwide, still remain above pre-pandemic levels.

Cruz said 33 homicides were reported in the City of Pittsburgh in the first half of 2018, 22 in the first half of 2019, and 24 in the first half of 2020.

That pandemic spike is evident nationwide. Homicide levels nationwide remained 24% higher in the first half of 2023 than they were in the first half of 2019, the study said.

There are historical trends, too.

Violent crime in America reached a post-war peak in 1991. The U.S. homicide rate in 2019 — 5.1 per 100,000 U.S. residents — was half the modern peak of 9.8 in 1991, the study said. Homicides nationwide dropped to their lowest level since World War II in 2014.

Rosenfeld said crime diverted its decades-long drop, specifically in homicide, with one event: police killing George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020.

Rosenfeld admitted Friday that his theory is very speculative. But, he said, the video of Floyd’s death going viral and the widespread protests that followed precipitated increased crime.

“The general idea is that people are angry at the police, confidence in the police drops,” he said. “As confidence drops, people are more likely to take matters into their own hands.”

Aggravated assaults, crimes committed with a deadly weapon or those that result in or threaten serious bodily injury to a victim, dropped this year but remain above pre-pandemic levels.

During the first half of 2023, aggravated assaults were 2.5% lower in cities surveyed than they were in 2022, the study said. The aggravated assault rate in the first half of 2023 still was 8% higher than it was before the pandemic.

There was at least one outlier to the overall trending drop in crime, according to Rosenfeld.

Motor vehicle thefts, which began to rise at the onset of covid-19, continued an upward trend, the study said. Motor vehicle theft rose 33.5% in the first half of 2023, representing 23,974 more stolen vehicles in the U.S.

Seven U.S. cities experienced more than 100% increases in motor vehicle thefts, led by Rochester, NY, (355%) and Cincinnati (+162%), the study said.

Overall, vehicle thefts 2023 so far are 104.3% higher than during the same period in 2019.