NEWS Violent Crime in Cincinnati Hits 10-Year Low

According to recent data from the Cincinnati Police Department, local violent crime is down by 1.1% from the previous year.

BY MADELINE FENING

Ayear after Cincinnati City Council declared the city’s gun violence a public health emergency, violent crime rates have reached a 10-year low, police said recently.

The statistics

Cincinnati Police Department lieutenant colonel Mike John went over 2022 violent crime statistics during a special meeting of the Climate, Environment and Infrastructure committee on Feb. 23. John told the committee that violent crime – which accounts for cases of homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assault – is up 3% in the U.S., but Cincinnati's 2022 numbers are down by 1.1% from the previous year.

“We’ve actually made some headway, which is encouraging,” John said.

John pointed out that violent crime in Cincinnati was at a 10-year low, with 1,748 reported cases of violent crime in 2022, more than one thousand fewer than in 2012.

John said 2022 saw 401 shooting victims; of those, 61 were fatal. That number varied slightly from 2021 when 405 people were shot but saw 82 deaths. 2020's COVID spike in shooting deaths stood out with 486 shot and 84 killed.

CPD crime stats showed that 78 homicides, including non-gun-related deaths, happened in the city in 2022, down from the 94 homicides reported in 2021. Rapes ticked upward, though, going from 232 reported cases in 2021 to 293 in 2022. Robberies also increased slightly, with 647 cases in 2021 and 654 in 2022. Aggravated assault trended downward with 874 cases in 2021 and 801 in 2022.

The neighborhoods

John said he didn’t “claim to be an epidemiologist” but pointed out that, much like disease, crime tends to cluster geographically.

The West End was the top neighborhood for shooting victims in 2022 and 2021, with Over-the-Rhine (OTR) coming in second and Avondale in third. A graph showed that OTR had the highest average number of shooting victims over a five-year period.

John emphasized that the clusters of violent crime are reflective of specific sections of neighborhoods, not entire neighborhood areas.

"West End, Other-the-Rhine, Avondale – there are pockets within these neighborhoods which are particularly challenging, so it's not a descriptor of the total neighborhood, but we certainly have very focused areas where the crime clusters," John said.

After sliding through nine slides worth of charts and cold hard numbers, John paused on a screen filled with pictures of the shooting victims from 2022.

"I really didn't want to insult families and say that your family member is just a number to us. Your family is a person," he said.

John said CPD's closure rate for homicide cases outperformed the national average, with 74% of cases closed in 2021. The national closure rate was just around 50%.

The solutions

Dr. Amy Makley, director of trauma surgery at University of Cincinnati Medical Center, addressed the committee on the hospital's partnership with the city to reduce gun deaths.

"Disproportionally, the majority of our victims are young, healthy adults and teenagers. Gun violence does remain the third leading injury we see, it is second only to motor vehicle collisions and falls," Makley said. "We cannot ignore the pressing need to address the mental health issues that accompany gun violence, especially with victims of violence in suicide."

Makley also mentioned a new program that connects victims of gun violence who leave UC Medical with people who can help them mentally recover and process the trauma that comes from gun violence.

Cincinnati City Council is considering expanding its free gun lock program to encourage more compliance with its recently passed gun storage law. On Feb. 8, council unanimously approved an ordinance requiring gun owners who live with children to lock up their weapons at home, either in a gun safe or locked box, or by placing a lock on the gun itself. The ordinance mentioned the October shooting death of a three-year-old in Cincinnati. The child’s six-year-old brother reportedly shot and killed the toddler after finding a loaded gun in their home. The ordinance also mentioned the death of an eight-year-old who shot and killed himself after finding a handgun in his house.

The ordinance also would bar those convicted of domestic violence charges from owning a weapon. The domestic violence rule for gun ownership is already a federal law, but the new local law would allow Cincinnati’s legal department to prosecute. Conviction of either gun laws would result in a first-degree misdemeanor, resulting in up to one year in jail.

CPD's crime breakdown showed that 21 people were shot and killed in a domestic violence dispute in 2022.