Jacksonville culminates with 157 homicides in 2023: Here's who is dying, where and how

EDITOR'S NOTE: This story will be updated slightly throughout the year as developments are made in the investigations.

Jacksonville ended 2023 by reaching at least 150 homicides for the fourth time in the last five years after not exceeding that death toll in more than a decade, according to Times-Union data documented for nearly 20 years. The city finished with 157.

Last year Jacksonville endured its second-worst total of 168 killings during the newspaper's tracking.

The Times-Union compiles its database with a summary of who, what, where, when and why from information available through police and public records. Each case is updated when there’s an arrest and other developments. However, victim names often weren't available due to the state's since overruled Marsy's Law that allowed families to keep them private if they so chose.

Here's what have we learned: Among this year's victims, 14 were 17 or younger — one more than in 2022. The age range with the highest fatality rate continued to be 21 to 30 with 54 deaths, ahead of the previous year's 50. The overwhelming majority of victims were Black with 129 as opposed to 23 white and five Hispanic. That compares to 124 Black victims, 38 white and six Hispanic in 2022. Seventeen females fell prey to the violence, well behind 29 casualties last year.

The locations of killings have been predominantly in Jacksonville's historically deadliest ZIP code 32209 in the Moncrief area with 30, followed by 14 on the Westside in 32210 and 12 in 32208 including Lake Forest/Riverview/Sherwood Forest/Norwood/Panama Park. Last year 32209 was tops but only with 20, followed by 18 in 32210 and 16 in 32206.

Shootings accounted for 123 deaths (not counting police shootings), down from 131 the prior year. At the moment, 55 cases resulted in murder or manslaughter arrests. The 2022 arrests were in at least 60 of the cases, but that's been updated throughout the last year.

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Before 2022's 167 total homicides, 2021 finally saw a substantial decrease to 129, and that followed 2020's highest in total in recent memory at 177. The all-time record is unclear, but The Times-Union has been told there were even more in the 1980s.

The lowest total since the newspaper has kept track was 86 in 2011, only the second year to record fewer than 100 homicides. The other was in 2010 when 96 homicides were recorded.

At 157, 2023's homicides mean 2,359 people are among the city’s casualties since 2006. In the last decade, Jacksonville averages 141 homicides per year, about one homicide every couple of days.

Here's a closer look at the 2023 data and how it compares to recent years.

How many homicides have been recorded in Jacksonville this year vs. last year?

KEY STATISTICS

A closer look at who is dying in Jacksonville's homicides this year.

Victims, by gender

2023: Gender of homicide victims
Infogram

Victims, by age

Victims, by race

All 2023 homicides in Jacksonville

Here's a closer look at all of the homicides in Jacksonville this year, including what we know about each one, including the victim's name, cause of death and more. (View additional homicide details by clicking or tapping on the entry or see more homicide entries by scrolling down.)

What's the long-term trend of homicides in Jacksonville?

Since 2003, when the Times-Union began its recordkeeping of the city's homicides, Jacksonville saw a low of 86 homicides in 2011 and a high of 177 — more than double the 2011 total — in 2020. Only twice since 2003, in 2010 and 2011, has the city recorded fewer than 100 homicides in a year.

About this data

As a footnote, The Times-Union’s numbers may vary somewhat from the Sheriff’s Office due to some procedural differences. As the Sheriff's Office updates its numbers with developments, perhaps a new ruling on whether a case is a homicide or not or perhaps one where the individual died several days later, it often does not alert the media. So sometimes updates may go unnoticed. In addition, the Sheriff's Office sometimes isn't consistent on what homicides are included — for instance on the death of a fetus when the mother is killed, out-of-jurisdiction cases at the Beaches or deaths that occur from a previous year. It’s usually only a matter of a couple of cases though.

The Times-Union tries to maintain consistency in how the newspaper's numbers are reported. So these statistics do not reflect deaths in the Beaches municipalities that are outside of the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office's jurisdiction. Occasionally, the Sheriff's Office is asked to handle one or two of these cases and subsequently counts them as one of its own. Atlantic, Jacksonville and Neptune beaches typically only have a couple of homicides each year — only two were registered in 2023.

The other terminology to note is the difference between a homicide and a murder: They are not interchangeable. Murders do not include justifiable actions such as self-defense or just cause; homicides do. So homicide numbers will always be higher than the murder totals that law enforcement agencies include in their Uniform Crime Reporting to the FBI.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Jacksonville homicide exceed 150 in 2023: Deaths by race, gender, age