Homicides down but violent crime increased in major US cities, midyear survey says

With less than two months left before the midterms, crime as an election issue may be gaining even more relevance.

A survey by the Major Cities Chiefs Association revealed that, while homicides and rapes are down in urban areas of the U.S. compared to the same point last year, violent crime, in general, has increased by 4.4%, and the rate of violent offenses remains much higher than before the pandemic.

The survey of 70 responding law enforcement agencies compared crime statistics from the first half of 2021 to the same period in 2022, a time when the COVID-19 crisis had waned, lessening the factors that contributed to violent crime rising nationally in 2020 for the first time in four years.

There were notable increases in robberies (13%) and aggravated assaults (2.6%), accounting for the lion’s share of the violent crime total — nearly 237,000 — in those cities from Jan. 1 to June 30, 2022. The total for the first half of 2019, before the pandemic, was a little over 193,000. Of those, 3,004 were homicides.

This year the number was 4,511 for the first six months.

“Compared to 2019 midyear figures, MCCA member cities have experienced a 50% increase in homicides and a roughly 36% increase in aggravated assaults,’’ the association said in a statement. “These shocking numbers demonstrate how the sustained increase in violent crime has disproportionately impacted major urban areas.’’

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While not as encompassing as FBI reports, the Major Cities Chiefs Association survey provides useful information about crime trends in the nation’s largest population centers, and it figures to be cited by politicians looking to win votes with tough-on-crime stands – or to portray their opponents as weak in that area.

In an Aug. 23 poll by the Pew Research Center, violent crime ranked as the third most important issue for registered voters in the congressional election, with 60% of the vote, tying with health care and trailing only the economy (77%) and gun policy (62%).

In early June, after voters ousted a progressive district attorney in San Francisco and sent a onetime Republican into a mayoral runoff with the established Democratic candidate in Los Angeles — both cities are deeply blue — President Joe Biden sounded the alarm about the importance of crime at the ballot box.