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Violent crime in the nation’s largest jurisdictions fell across the board in the first six months of this year, but the results were mixed in four of Maryland’s largest jurisdictions, according to preliminary data.
The report last week by the Major Cities Chiefs Association said that in 69 of the nation’s 70 biggest cities and jurisdictions, homicides, rapes, robberies and aggravated assaults fell 6% overall in the first half of the year, when compared to the first six months of 2023. The New York City Police Department did not provide data for this year’s report.
But in Maryland, the year-to-year results were up and down. Robberies were up in Baltimore, Baltimore County and Montgomery, while rapes were up in the city and in Prince George’s County, according to the report. Prince George’s also saw a small rise in aggravated assaults.
The Maryland jurisdictions were not alone: Only 18 of the 69 jurisdictions in the report saw crime fall in all four areas this year, with most posting a gain in one or two categories.
While the overall national numbers were encouraging, there is still room for improvement, said Laura Cooper, executive director of the association. She wrote in an email Tuesday while aggravated assaults were down from 2023, they are still 16% higher than “pre-pandemic levels.”
“While we are trending in the right direction, there is still work to be done to get us to pre-pandemic levels,” she wrote. “Funding is essential as are partnerships with a myriad of stakeholders and the community. Accountability is also key and leveraging relationships with state and federal partners are often the recipe for handling repeat violent offenders.”
Cooper said the association, which has collected crime data since 2014, has not conducted an analysis to why certain offenses have decreased or increased in certain jurisdictions — like those in Maryland.
In Baltimore City, homicides fell from 142 in the first half of last year to 90 this year while aggravated assaults dropped from 3,028 last year to 2,624 this year. But rapes slightly increased, from 97 to 105, and robberies rose from 1,502 to 1,590.
A Baltimore Police Department spokesperson said an official would not be available for comment Tuesday, but noted how the department is a finalist for an international award for its more than 2-year-old community policing program called “Group Violence Reduction Strategy (GVRS).” The winner will be announced during the 32nd annual Problem-Oriented Policing Conference in Baltimore on Sept. 12-14.
“GVRS is a great example of how cities across the country can implement evidence-based focused deterrence strategies to drive down violence in our communities, while turning the page on the history of mass incarceration and building public safety the right way,” Mayor Brandon Scott said in a statement last month.
In neighboring Baltimore County, robberies increased from 374 last year to 405 this year. Otherwise, homicides from 16 to 11, rapes went from 83 to 47, and aggravated assaults dipped from 1,192 to 1,133.
The pattern was much the same in Montgomery County, where robberies rose from 278 to 325 but homicides decreased from 15 to five; rapes from 227 to 176; and aggravated assaults from 518 to 503.
Reported aggravated assaults inched up in Prince George’s County, from 370 in the first half of last year to 372 this year, while rapes rose from 60 to 67. The number of homicides stayed even at 49 and robberies slightly decreased from 725 to 718.
Police officials from the Montgomery, Prince George’s and Baltimore counties were not able to provide anyone to comment on the numbers Tuesday.
Kurt Wolfgang, executive director of the Maryland Crime Victims’ Resource Center Inc., said he thinks more reliable statistics come from the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program, but its 2023 numbers will not be released until this fall. But he said it’s good to see up-to-date statistics from the chiefs association.
Even though the latest report is positive, he believes that “in my lifetime crime has gotten dramatically worse,” which he blamed on “some disintegration in our society over time. We don’t have the closely knit families that we used to have.”
Wolfgang, who got his undergraduate degree in criminology at the University of Maryland College Park, said more focus needs to be placed on victims and survivors of crime. He serves on the advisory Patuxent Institution Citizens’ Advisory Board, where he said incarcerated individuals with a “decent record of behavior” can take free college courses from Georgetown University.
“I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. I think that is a very good thing,” he said. “But what hurts my heart about it is that there doesn’t seem to be any sort of inkling of a concept of reaching out to crime victims for the same thing.”
