SPOKANE, Wash. – US Department of Justice (DOJ) Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco spoke at a national meeting of police chiefs Wednesday and emphasized the reduction of violent crime in large cities.
According to DOJ data, the number of murders in major American cities was reduced by 11% from 2022 to 2023. Rape, robbery and assault rates have also gone down.
“Across 90 large cities, early numbers this year indicate the positive trends are continuing – with an 18% decrease in murders in the first quarter of 2024,” Monaco said.
In Spokane, a city-wide crime report published June 3 showed that violent crime has been reduced by about 8% since last May.
While violence has gone down, gun violence continues to challenge law enforcement agencies according to Monaco.
“From 2021 to 2023, more officers were feloniously killed than in any other consecutive three-year period in the past 20 years,” Monaco said.
Efforts to curb gun violence nationally face several legal limitations. The 1986 Firearm Owners Protection Act prohibits the DOJ or any other federal agency from creating a database of guns, meaning there is no national system to track firearms in the US.
Additionally, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ National Tracing Center is still using a mid-70’s style analog sorting system to track crime guns.
Despite police departments and sheriff’s offices struggling to track guns involved in crimes, the DOJ data shows a general decline in all forms of violent crime in urban areas over the past three years.
