Number of Detroit homicides falls for 2nd consecutive year

Detroit Free Press Staff and Wire Services
Detroit Police Chief James Craig

Detroit's police chief says the number of homicides in the city declined in 2018 for the second consecutive year.

Chief James Craig said there were 261 criminal homicides in 2018, down from 267 in 2017. The total from 2017 had marked the fewest number of homicides since 1966, when there were 214, the Detroit News reports. Detroit's 2018 numbers are subject to review.

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“To the one or two critics out there who say 'We don’t believe that the department has a crime-fighting strategy,' that is clearly not the case. … Our numbers are definitely not by accident," Craig said at a news conference Wednesday. 

However, Detroit's falling population makes the decline in homicides look less impressive. Factoring in Detroit's current population of around 673,000, the News says the 2018 homicide rate was around 39 per 100,000 residents. The rate in 1966, when Detroit had around 1.5 million people, was 14 per 100,000 residents.

At the news conference, Craig said crime was down in many other areas over the previous year: 

  • Robbery: 2,304 incidents, down 13 percent
  • Aggravated assault: 10,015 incidents, down 2 percent
  • Burglary: 7,428 incidents, down 10 percent  
  • Larceny: 13,652 incidents, down 3 percent  
  • Stolen vehicles: 6,301, down 23 percent  
  • Nonfatal shootings (which are included in aggravated assault totals): 755, down 10 percent

Two areas saw increases. There were 894 rapes, an increase of 28 percent, which Craig attributed to a change in how sexual assaults are classified. 

Carjackings, which police said are included in the robbery totals, were at 309, up 3 percent from the previous year. 

Craig credited the overall declines in part to community-based crime prevention partnerships, new uses of technology to fight crime, and the police department's strong relationship with the U.S. Attorney's Office and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Staff writer Ann Zaniewski contributed to this report.