The Philadelphia murder rate is holding steady at about a 20% decline over 2007. That’s shy of the mayor’s 25% goal but an admirable achievement nonetheless. Still, more than 250 Philadelphians have been murdered this year. Back in November 2007, I posted a trailer for what appeared to be a longer documentary about murder in Philadelphia. Subsequently that documentary has been completed and has gotten some nice press for its relatively unvarnished look at the neighborhoods and circumstances that disproportionately contribute to the murder count in Philadelphia.
PHILADELPHIA HOMICIDE CITY Money Murder & Politics is a look into what issues really contribute to the struggle and poverty currently in America. It identifies that struggle and poverty are the most popular assumptions for the high murder rate in Philadelphia both statistically and through experience. The movie communicates possible solutions as well as some of the details seen from the situation as it exists currently.
The movie digs into the life and culture of the rougher neighborhoods and communities in Philadelphia in hopes to shed light on the issues faced there to the rest of the population.
As we head into this year’s 2008 Weekend of Peace, I wanted to point out that there is some good news in Philadelphia’s murder rate. Here’s how it looks as of the end of July:
In an article from December of 2007, the Inquirer’s Andrew Maykuth reported that some new measures had been adopted in the 12th District:
In Philadelphia, one of the most prominent countermeasures this year was focused in Southwest Philadelphia’s 12th Police District after a spike in homicides last winter. In March, the police deployed an additional 80 veteran officers to the district, and the heightened force has remained in place, said Grace, the mayor’s spokesman.
The result, he said, is that the 12th District has reported a 10.6 percent decrease in violent crime this year, outpacing the citywide drop. Shootings in the district were down almost 38 percent from last year – nearly three times the citywide rate.
As it turns out, that appears to have been when the murder rate started trending downward:
The most recent numbers indicate that, comparing the 2006, 2007 and 2008 calendar years through July, the murder rate has dropped by about 23% this year. But given that changes were first made in March of 2007, it makes sense to compare periods starting in April. So, April of 2006 through March of 2007 showed 426 murders. April of 2007 (when the reforms were made, recall) through March of 2008 saw 361 murders. There were 65 fewer murders in the 12 month period following the April 2007 realignment, a decline of about 18%. Dan, at The Next Mayor Blog asks the obvious question: Can the Nutter administration take credit for the decline?
Here’s another comparison that might help answer that question. From August 2006-July 2007, there were 417 murders. From August 2007-July 2008, there were 334 murders. That’s a difference of 83 murders, or 24.9%. So, while the downward trend in Philly’s murder rate may have begun under Street’s administration, the numbers have clearly accelerated since Nutter took office.
July is not officially over yet, but the numbers reported on the Philadelphia Police Department website are showing 187 murders for 2008 as of midnight on the 30th. By my calculations, that means there have been 24 murders this month. That is, of course, still a terrible number, but to put it in perspective, in July of 2007, there were 42 murders in the month of July. That number for 2006? 49.
July has typically been the worst month for killings in Philadelphia, but this July will record one of the lowest monthly totals of 2008. Overall, murders are down 23.36% over last year. At this rate, we may get a murder rate decline of more than the 25% the Nutter administration promised.
Philadelphia’s murder rate continues to run about 20% below last year’s numbers, through June. This is off Mayor Nutter’s ambitious goal of a 25% reduction. A 25% drop is still within the realm of possibility, but as the year goes on, it looks increasingly out of reach. In fact, given the numbers today, we need to average fewer than 23 murders per month for the remainder of the year to hit that goal. Here are the numbers from the Philadelphia Police Department’s website for the end of June:
This chart compares the monthly breakdown in murders comparing 2006-2008. While the decline over 2007 is 19.7%, the decline over 2006 is just 11.9%.
As I have argued, there appears to have been a shift in the murder rate that dates to about April of 2007, marking the start of the decline that continues today. In fact, if you compare relative twelve-month periods, you’ll see that the shift is much more pronounced than the annual totals indicate. Between July of 2006 and June of 2007, there were 424 murders. Between July of 2007 and June of 2008, there were 352 murders. That difference of 72 murders during those comparative twelve-month periods amounts to a decline of 17%.
As the graph indicates, July has traditionally been a dismal month for murders, and there’ll likely be nothing different about that this year, but let’s hope the decline continues. I’m going to predict it will, and July 2008 will see no more than 33 murders.
The Daily News reports that 6 Philadelphians were killed in a 29-hour period over the weekend. But it’s still the case that the numbers are down across the city. And innovative interventions along with the reapportionment of policing resources seems to be paying off:
Crime down in SW Philly as first-time offenders learn to make better choices
By DAVID GAMBACORTA & DAFNEY TALES
Philadelphia Daily News
IN AN UNEASY silence, about 35 parents and teens sat on rusty metal chairs in the 12th District’s dingy, humid roll-call room.Then, the terse words of Common Pleas Judge Kevin Dougherty cut through the air: “Welcome to my world,” he said. “I don’t play.”
It was about 7 on a Friday night when Dougherty and Capt. Daniel MacDonald transformed the roll-call room into a makeshift courtroom for the district’s first juvenile-nuisance night-court session. The goal of the monthly program – MacDonald’s brainchild – is to convince young, first-time offenders to straighten out their lives now, instead of getting swallowed up in a cycle of violence and crime.
The judge paired many teens that night in late April with community groups and ordered them to clean the streets and parks of Southwest Philadelphia. “These kids are capable of being rehabilitated,” Dougherty said.
Cops and longtime community activists say that sort of outside-the-box thinking, along with putting more cops on the street, are early hallmarks of Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey’s administration, which has seen a pronounced drop in crime numbers across the city.
The decrease in violent crime numbers is probably most noticeable in Southwest Philadelphia’s 12th District, which Ramsey identified four months ago as one of the city’s nine worst. Residents see more cops on the street, fewer drug dealers on the corners. Some feel safer, but others remain skeptical that the crime drop will last.
As of May 18, there have been seven killings in the 12th District, compared with 15 at that same point a year ago, according to police statistics. The number of shooting victims there is also down, from 59 a year ago to 43.
Similar trends are playing out across the city. As of last Tuesday, police officials said that the number of homicides stood at 117, compared with 158 at this point last year – a 25 percent decrease.
Has the goal of a 25% reduction in murders already been achieved?
Bit of a late update on this chart, but here’s how this year is stacking up with 2007 and 2008 so far:
According to my numbers, there were 137 murders (rather than 135) on April 30th in 2007, but we’ll stick with the Police Department’s numbers. In 2006, through the end of April, there had been 119. So, the number of murders as of the end of April, 2008 is about a 25% drop over the same period in 2007 (on target to achieve the Nutter administration’s goal), but just a 15% decline over 2006.
Here it is graphically (click to see full size):
Recall that there appeared to have been a change in policing strategy back in April of 2007 which shifted resources to the most troubled districts. Indeed, if you compare time periods starting in May and ending in April, the difference in the murder rate suggests the goal of a 25% year-over-year reduction may have already been achieved!
May 2006-April 2007: 424 murders
May 2007-April 2008: 326 murders
There were 98 fewer murders in the second one-year period than the first, a 23% reduction, and just shy of the goal.
Tom, over at Phillyweather.net, has an interesting analysis of the relationship between weather and spikes in the murder rate. He looked back at the last two years (2006 and 2007) finding 25 days when more than 4 murders were recorded in a 24 hour period. He then matched those days with the average and actual high temperatures, along with any measurable rain. Here’s what he found:
What can be deduced from the data?
(1) Warmer than normal weather, especially nice days, tend to be when tempers boil over.
(2) The hottest month of the year is the worst for the murder rate.
There are a couple of things to be wary of here. First, the initial recording of the data. A murder is usually logged on the day when the body is discovered, not when the murder actually occurred, so treating a day where 4 murders were officially recorded as categorically distinct from one in which only 3 were recorded may be problematic. There’s likely nothing we could do about fixing that problem with the data unless we went through and analyzed time-of-death for each individual victim. Second, the high temperature is recorded at some point in the mid-afternoon, and yet most murders happen well after dark when temperatures have cooled substantially. If tempers flare with the heat, there appears to be some time between those moments and the actual murders.
Finally, there’s another data point missing from the chart. Day of the week. The breakdown of the 25 days is as follows: Monday (2), Tuesday (2), Wednesday (2), Thursday (3), Friday (2), Saturday (7), Sunday (7).
It looks like weekends are a pretty important part of the picture, accounting for more of the 4+ murder days than all other days combined.
When these numbers update this morning, they’re going to show an increase of at least 5 murders in the last three days. The murders happened so quickly that the headline had to be updated after the slug:
One of the murders happened at 52nd and Webster, just a few blocks south of Malcolm X Park on 52nd.
Five weekend Philadelphia homicides
By Diane Mastrull and Jeff Shields
INQUIRER STAFF WRITERS
Police are investigating the deaths of five men between Saturday morning and Sunday morning, all victims of separate violent attacks.Police have no suspects in custody in a crime spree Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey had two words for today: “not good.”
The job tomorrow, Ramsey said, will be to look at “anything that we can do to maybe make the situation less likely” to reoccur. Among the things that will be explored, he said, is whether the killings occurred in any of the city’s designated high-crime areas and, if so, whether enough officers are deployed there.
……
Also, a male who had been found shot in the head around 1:30 this morning at 52nd Street and Webster in Southwest Philadelphia is reported in critical condition at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, police said. His identity and age were not available
Assuming, perhaps in vain, that there are no additional murders in the next few hours, the total should sit at 93 so far for 2008. That is still lower than 2007 (116) and 2006 ( 105), but such violent outbursts will make it difficult to hit the mayor’s goal of a 25% reduction for the year.
My records from 2007 show 102 by April 1st 2007, but it’s likely my error rather than PPD’s. Regardless, the murder rate continues to decline relative to both 2007 (when there were already over 100 murders) and 2006 (when there were 82).
The trend seems to be similar for the first three months across all three years, but for whatever reason, the rate seems to have just been reset significantly lower
Sean Patrick Conroy was killed yesterday on the westbound SEPTA platform at 13th and Market, allegedly by a group of high school kids who beat him to death. That kind of story certainly takes the luster off of the fact that the sheer number of murders across the city is dropping. Here’s the latest from the PPD website:
The comparable number from 2006 is 76, an 11.7% decline.
