Mayors from across the US came to Memphis to talk crime. How their crime rates compare

Lucas Finton, Memphis Commercial Appeal
Updated ·4 min read
1

A coalition of mayors and high-ranking city officials from across the country were in Memphis to discuss solutions to crime on Thursday.

Though the sessions were private, The Commercial Appeal took a look at some of the major cities that will be represented at the Black Mayors' Coalition on Crime forum to look for similarities between them and Memphis.

The confirmed attendees are:

  • Mayor Mitch Colvin: Fayetteville, North Carolina

  • Mayor Jaylen Smith: Earle, Arkansas

  • Mayor Julian McTizic: Bolivar, Tennessee

  • Deputy Mayor Lindsey Appiah: Washington, D.C.

  • Mayor Eddie Melton: Gary, Indiana

  • Mayor William Rawls Jr.: Brownsville, Tennessee

  • Mayor Courtney Welch: Emeryville, California

  • Mayor Tishaura Jones: St. Louis, Missouri

  • Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba: Jackson, Mississippi

  • Mayor LaToya Cantrell: New Orleans, Louisiana

  • NOPD Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick: New Orleans, Louisiana

  • Mayor Beverly H. Burks: Clarkston, Georgia

  • Mayor Frank Scott Jr.: Little Rock, Arkansas

  • Chief Operating Officer Lisa Y. Benjamin: Atlanta, Georgia

  • Mayor Rex Richardson: Long Beach, California

  • Mayor Cory Woods: Tempe, Arizona

  • Mayor Leonardo Williams: Durham, North Carolina

  • Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Brian Williams: Los Angeles, California

  • Maj. Torrie Tellis, CMPD: Charlotte, North Carolina

Memphis tops the list of homicides in 2023

Chief among Memphis' crime concerns in 2023 were homicides, which reached an all-time high. America as a whole, however, saw homicides drop compared to 2022. Of some of the major cities represented at the summit, Memphis was one of three that saw an increase in homicides last year, and the Bluff City saw a greater overall change — positive or negative — than any of them.

Memphis had the highest homicide rate — and flat out most homicides — in 2023 compared to Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., New Orleans, St. Louis, Atlanta, Charlotte, Durham, Little Rock, and Long Beach.

Memphis had 386 homicides last year, according to early data from the Memphis Shelby County Crime Commission. The next highest on that list was Los Angeles with 327. But, when accounting for population, Memphis had a homicide rate of 6.24 homicides per 10,000 residents. Los Angeles had 0.86 homicides per 10,000 residents last year.

Here were the homicide rates in 2023 for some of the other cities, per 10,000 people:

  • St. Louis: 5.51

  • New Orleans: 5.22

  • Washington, D.C.: 4.04

  • Little Rock: 3.11

  • Atlanta: 2.70

  • Durham: 1.45

  • Charlotte: 1.06

  • Los Angeles: 0.86

  • Long Beach: 0.58

Memphis, along with Washington, D.C. and Durham, were the only cities of this group to see homicides rise from 2022 to 2023. New Orleans, which had just seen one of the highest homicide rates in the country in 2022, had one of the biggest declines in homicide rate.

Here is a comparison of each city's change in homicide rate from 2022 to 2023:

  • Memphis: 53.17% increase

  • Washington, D.C.: 34.98% increase

  • Durham: 8.89% increase

  • Charlotte: 11.21% decrease

  • Los Angeles: 16.58% decrease

  • St. Louis: 21% decrease

  • Atlanta: 21.05% decrease

  • Little Rock: 22.22% decrease

  • New Orleans: 27.44% decrease

  • Long Beach: 27.78% decrease

How do some cities stack up to Memphis in major crime areas?

Though being an outlier in rising homicides, Memphis was not alone in having a high number of aggravated assaults, motor vehicle thefts and car break-ins.

Data collected in 2022 from the same cities, with the exception of Los Angeles, for which data was not available, showed most of the cities that will take part in the crime forum had at least 1,000 aggravated assaults, 1,000 car thefts and more than 5,000 car break-ins.

Comparing data between different states can, however, be difficult due to differences in the classification of offenses. For example, car thefts in California often fall under a grand theft auto statute.

In 2022, which was the last time a complete data set could be located for these cities, St. Louis, Memphis and New Orleans had the three highest stolen vehicle rates. Memphis, however, was just outside that top three when it came to car break-ins, and St. Louis, Atlanta and New Orleans were at the top.

When it came to aggravated assaults in 2022, Memphis had the highest rate per 10,000 residents and had about 37% more aggravated assaults when taking into account its population than the next-highest city. Memphis came in with a rate of 200.08 aggravated assaults per 10,000 residents, Little Rock had 146.4 aggravated assaults per 10,000 residents and St. Louis had 120.49 per 10,0000 residents.

Lucas Finton is a criminal justice reporter with The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached at Lucas.Finton@commercialappeal.com, or (901)208-3922, and followed on X, formerly known as Twitter, @LucasFinton.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Black Mayors' Coalition on Crime met in Memphis: How rates compare