Tag: Memphis Crime Statistics

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News News Blog

Major Violent Crimes Down in 2022

Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

The Public Safety Institute at the University of Memphis and the Memphis Shelby Crime Commission have used preliminary data from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation to release 2022 crime figures.

Officials said while still higher than previous years, the number of reported major violent crimes has gone down.  These crimes saw a 5.1 percent decrease compared to 2021 in Memphis, and 5.0 percent countywide. Reported major violent crimes include murders, rapes, robberies, and aggravated assault.

According to Bill Gibbons, executive director of the PSI and president of the Crime Commission, this decline is the result of reduced reports of aggravated assaults, both in Memphis and countywide. 

 “Aggravated assaults make up some 80 percent of reported major violent crime. The number of reported aggravated assaults drives the violent crime number,” said Gibbons. 

While violent crime numbers have decreased, there has been an increase in major property crimes, specifically vehicle thefts. Reported burglaries, vehicle thefts and other felony thefts are considered major property crimes.

Memphis saw a 29.3 percent increase in major property crime compared to 2021 numbers, while vehicle thefts “skyrocketed” with a 113.1 percent increase in Memphis and 107.9 percent increase countywide. There was also a 12.3 percent increase in reported burglaries in Memphis and a 9.6 percent increase countywide.

Officials also reported that the number of guns stolen from vehicles also saw a drastic increase. According to reports from the Memphis Police Department, 2,441 guns were reported stolen in 2022. This is a 19 percent increase compared to 2021 (2,042), and a 750 percent increase compared to 2011 (287).

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Editorial Opinion

Crime and Punishment and Societal Problems

The issue of public safety is sure to surface sooner or later in this city election season. Fodder for it was provided on Tuesday during an address to the Rotary Club of Memphis from Memphis Police Director Michael Rallings.

MPD director Mike Rallings

As is usual under such circumstances, the head of MPD was prepared with plenty of statistics. In a nutshell, there were two sets of measurements: 1) the state of criminal incidents since last year, and 2) the state of things since the city’s high-mark for violent crime in 2006 — the year that the data-driven policy of Blue Crush took hold in the department.

By the second measure, progress is undeniable. The incidence of crime is down 6 percent since the advent of Blue Crush — and, as Rallings noted, that means 1,625 fewer victims per annum. As for violent crimes, there were 36,859 by this point in 2006; there are some 26,000 in 2019, thus far, an impressive decline.

Now for the bad news: “Homicides are still a challenge,” Rallings said. The number of murders has picked up this year by a margin of 13 percent over last year. Another issue is a drastic increase in the number of firearms stolen from vehicles since the passage of state legislation several years back that allows guns belonging to licensed owners to be left in automobiles. Rallings pointed out the irony that the state’s lawmakers were much more scrupulous about banning the use of cellphones in cars than they have been regarding guns.

The director said the ideal number of MPD officers is 2,600, adding that there are 2072 officers currently. He said he expects to see the force reach 2,300 officers by the end of 2020.

But, as Rallings noted, the best means of lowering the crime rate is not that of merely buttressing the police component. He pinpointed three predominant facts common to offenders: 1) the fact of being a high school dropout, 2) the subjection during one’s upbringing to an atmosphere of domestic violence, and 3) the incidence of transience in the life of offenders’ families. The best means of curtailing crime, Rallings said, would be to find solutions to these insufficiencies in the lives of the city’s less fortunate citizens.

This year’s mayoral candidates might take heed of Rallings’ findings, particularly his syllogism that “to improve literacy is to reduce crime.” That relates particularly to his first point. As for his second point, Rallings said there was a direct correlation between “intimate-partner violence” in the home to crimes committed later on by youths raised in those circumstances. Clearly, an increased emphasis on reducing domestic abuse is as relevant to crime control as it is to culture in general in the #MeToo era.

All in all, Director Rallings made obvious the connection between social attitudes, insufficient housing, poverty and its attendant social problems, and the crime rate. It behooves the mayoral candidates of 2019 to consider the facts and come up with strategies to improve the situation on all fronts.

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Letters To The Editor Opinion

What They Said…

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

Greg Cravens

About the editorial, “The Whirlwind” …

I get the correlation between “Christianist” and “jihadist,” suddenly. But if you’re going to press the analogy, you’ll need someone other than Robert Dear. The jihadists whose pictures appear in the media don’t look like they’ve spent their lives away from church in a trailer in the woods.

Brunetto Latini

Those who are concerned about youngsters growing up inundated virtually 24/7 by violent video games, violent movies, violent TV shows, violent music lyrics, violent comic books, violent sports, and excuses for violent crime are ridiculed.

ALJ2

The owners of this country want those violent games, movies, TV, etc., promulgated. Helps recruit and inure to the idea of killing their armed forces who defend their global interests, er, our country.

Packrat

We’ve got a problem, America! The NRA says it’s people who kill people. It’s bullets fired from guns that actually do the killing and rip a person’s body to shreds. You don’t know where the next attack or rampage is going to occur, but you can be sure it is going to involve guns.

Republicans have created hundreds of new laws that restrict and reduce access to abortions around the country. So why can’t they create even one new law to alleviate the madness that is gripping the country. Why do Republicans continue to block gun legislation when surveys show that Americans support stricter laws on guns? Follow the money.

RLowe

About Bruce VanWyngarden’s Letter From the Editor, “The Cocksure Candidate” …

Trump is just the online comment sections in human form. Unfortunately, he is now running for president.

Charlie Eppes

Who cares how he got his money or whether he can dunk a ball or hang by his hair from the Brooklyn Bridge. He is beyond unqualified, and his popularity evidences America’s huge, bloated underbelly.

CL Mullins

The Trump joke is on us: a) scion of a moneyed and connected family; b) Ivy League B-school product; c) second-generation wealth via speculation (Manhattan real estate); d) more wealth via avarice (casinos); e) circus (reality TV star).

All the while, he presents himself as a “populist.” Only in America!

Jrgolden

About Kenneth Neill’s Viewpoint, “Damned Statistics” …

Implying that the City of Memphis and the Memphis Metropolitan Statistical Area are congruent is just wrong. Using it to try and make the point that Memphis is safer is dishonest. Perhaps the city is safer. If so, use an apples-to-apples comparison to demonstrate it.

Arlington Pop

I think the city has many positive aspects. It could be a great city. However the negative aspects overwhelm the positive aspects. It isn’t an either/or proposition. You may wish it so. You may demand it so. You may imply anything you like. Reality, on the other hand, remains.

Ichabod McCrane

About Bianca Phillips’ story, “Majority of Uninsured Tennesseans Live in Shelby County” …

If you look at the Tennessee legislature, you’ll see that approximately 75 percent of Democrats in the House and Senate are black people from Shelby County. 15 percent are old-school, white Southern Democrats from Nashville, and the last 10 percent are black people not from Memphis, with the occasional oddball Democrat from the middle of nowhere.

That tells you all you need to know about why the state suppresses Memphis and Shelby County. If I was a Republican who viewed Democrats as the enemy, keeping a foot on the neck of Memphis would be my first step toward maintaining Republican control of Tennessee.

FUNKbrs

Well, that explains why our legislators don’t want to expand Medicare. Anything that helps Shelby County is going to be at the bottom of their list.

B