Gun Violence in Philadelphia Plummeted in 2024 − Researchers Aren’t Sure Why, but Here Are 3 Factors at Play

Of course, the COVID-19 years considerably affected the entire criminal justice system and beyond in Philadelphia. Courts operated in a limited capacity, cases backlogged, probation and parole officers were less able to supervise individuals in the community, and the jail population was reduced. The city’s array of community- and hospital-based violence intervention programs were also disrupted.

The post-pandemic resumption of court operations, improved violence intervention programs, police recruitment efforts and reduced disability claims may help explain the recent drop in shootings.

New Leadership and Crime-Fighting Strategies
Reducing gun violence was a top campaign issue during Philadelphia’s 2023 mayoral race.

Mayor Cherelle Parker, elected on a law-and-order platform, declared a public safety emergency on her first day in office.

She also appointed Kevin Bethel as police commissioner in charge of the more than 6,000-member force. Bethel, second in command under former Commissioner Charles Ramsey, quickly released a 100-day plan that focused on crime reduction in high-crime districts, shutting down open-air drug markets in Kensington and reinforcing federal partnerships to tackle violent crime.

Philadelphia has also adopted new policing strategies and technologies.

In early 2022, before Parker and Bethel’s tenure, the Philadelphia Police Department under former Commissioner Danielle Outlaw designated a new unit to investigate nonfatal shootings. In 2021, only 17% of nonfatal shootings led to arrests, a failure that can fuel retaliatory violence, legal cynicism – which refers to a drop in trust of the legal system – and communities resorting to self-policing.

While it’s not yet clear what effect the new unit has had in Philadelphia, research shows such units that prioritize resources to solving nonfatal shootings in places such as Boston and Denver have reduced gun violence.

More recently, the city began deploying mobile surge teams on weekends to flood high-crime areas with officers to deter potential criminal activity.

Meanwhile, Temple University attributes the reduction in crime within its patrol areas to the implementation of safety measures, including new equipment for officers such as firearms and radios, upgraded security cameras and advanced technology such as license plate readers, which help identify stolen vehicles or those linked to criminal behavior.

National Crime Trends
While local initiatives have likely contributed to Philadelphia’s drop in violent crime, these improvements also fit into national crime trends as cities across the U.S. experienced similar declines.

Economics and public safety expert John Roman, for example, attributes both the rise and fall of violence to pandemic-related losses in government staffing and functionality, which he argues returned to prepandemic levels in late 2023.

Roman shows how 1.3 million government jobs were lost nationally at the outset of COVID-19, with 75% of the losses coming at the local level. These local government employees, such as social and outreach workers, often connect people in marginalized communities that bear the brunt of gun violence to crucial services such as trauma counseling, victim advocacy and legal assistance.

In Philadelphia, approximately 3,000 local government jobs were lost between 2019 and 2022. The reopening of social services and increase in those jobs and community-based interventions post-pandemic may have helped stabilize Philadelphia’s neighborhoods.

Crime trends tend to ebb and flow. This current drop appears to align with a national de-escalation in violent crime. These factors, alongside the statistical phenomenon of regression to the mean – where crime rates normalize after extreme spikes – apply to both national and local crime rates.

Some researchers, including Roman, have also considered the possibility that the recent 2020-2022 homicide peak killed a portion of the most violent offenders who drive shootings in their neighborhood. It’s based on the concept of the victim-offender overlap that those at the highest risk of violence are often offenders themselves.

But crediting Philadelphia’s decline in homicides and violent crime to any single cause oversimplifies a much more intricate picture. While the exact causes of these shifts are complex, understanding the interplay of local and national forces is essential to sustaining this positive trajectory.

Carla Lewandowski Associate Professor of Criminal Justice, Rowan University. John A. Shjarback is Associate Professor of Criminal Justice, Rowan University. This article is published courtesy of The Conversation.