Year in Review: Crime plagues big cities in 2022
Sarah Westwood
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Crime continued to plague major cities this year even as local leaders pivoted toward a greater focus on police and public safety.
This year saw crime become a major political theme, surfacing in campaign ads and on debate stages throughout the midterm elections. It resonated in large part because crime had increased in 2020 and exploded in 2021 in most U.S. cities, sparking a backlash to the liberal criminal justice activism that critics blamed for the rise in violence.
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In some cities, those crime levels began to decrease slightly in 2022.
Homicides fell in 18 of the country’s 30 largest cities this year compared to last, according to a Washington Examiner analysis. In the other 12, homicides continued to climb or stayed exactly the same.
But the decreases didn’t necessarily reflect a return to a pre-pandemic normal.
In Philadelphia, for example, the city’s 502 homicides so far this year, as of Dec. 20, represented a modest dip below the 540 homicides the city saw at this point last year.
But the number of homicides in 2022 represented the second-highest number ever recorded in Philadelphia.
Setting aside 2021, which broke the city’s record for homicides, this year saw more homicides in Philadelphia than any year since 1990.
Other crime statistics from Philadelphia suggest violence remains stubbornly high. As of mid-December, the city had recorded nearly as many shootings as last year.
In New York City, nearly every kind of crime increased except homicide by the fall of this year.
Robberies increased nearly 27% this year over last year, with the Big Apple recording 16,868 robberies in 2022, as of Dec. 18, versus the 13,313 it recorded at the same point last year.
Transit crimes, which include those that take place on the New York City subway, jumped by more than 28% this year.
Assaults, burglaries, and rapes also jumped in New York City in 2022.
In Austin, Texas, homicides exploded in 2021 by a significant margin. The city saw more homicides than any year since it began collecting that data in the 1960s.
Austin has so far this year experienced the second-highest number of homicides in six decades, with 2021 the only year that exceeded 2022 in homicides.
This year saw Austin experiencing more homicides than in 2018 and 2019, the final two pre-pandemic years, combined.
Chicago saw its homicides drop modestly this year to 661 after logging 776 homicides last year.
But other kinds of crimes proliferated at alarming rates.
Car thefts, for example, increased 99% this year compared to the same point last year; Chicago saw 9,933 motor vehicle thefts at this point in 2021 and 19,784 motor vehicle thefts so far in 2022.
Burglaries, robberies, and thefts also increased significantly in the Windy City in 2022.
Experts have debated why violence increased so dramatically following the lockdowns of 2020.
Some have blamed the closing of courts, which delayed criminal consequences for some offenders who had time to commit more crimes before facing trials.
Some have blamed school closures, which stripped many teenagers of the structure that prevented them from drifting into illegal activity. In Washington, D.C., for example, the number of carjackings has increased steadily since 2020 and continued to climb this year; nearly 70% of the offenders arrested for carjacking were juveniles in 2022.
Others have pointed to liberal criminal justice reforms, such as ending cash bail and reducing sentences, that allow offenders back on the streets more quickly.
And others have cited the anti-police sentiment that permeated much of the public after the murder of George Floyd in 2020 and the ensuing civil unrest.
Some of the cities experiencing increases in homicides had moved to cut their police budgets in the aftermath of 2020.
In Seattle, for example, homicides increased by 14% this year over 2021.
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With the exception of 2020, which saw a historic spike in homicides, this year was the deadliest in Seattle in decades.
In Portland, Oregon, the city broke its all-time record for the number of homicides in 2022. Portland hit that ominous milestone in November when it recorded its 93rd homicide of the year.
Both Portland and Seattle cut their police budgets after the riots of 2020, with the latter city making police budget cuts as recently as this fall.