Murders in the U.S. dropped 6% in 2022

The number of murders in the United States dropped just more than 6% in 2022 compared with 2021, the FBI said Monday. Experts say preliminary data for 2023 indicates that the decline has accelerated this year.

The decline in homicides is an encouraging sign after the increase in killings nationwide in 2020, but the number of murders is still higher than it was in the years before the coronavirus pandemic. There were 25% more homicides in 2022 than in 2019.

And the FBI’S annual crime report, released Monday, underscores how pervasive gun violence has become and how it is costing more young lives.

Overall, violent crime was down slightly in 2022 vs. 2021, the report said. But firearms were used in almost half a million violent crimes nationwide, about the same number as in 2021, the report said. The profile of the victims has shifted significantly. In 2020, gun violence became the leading cause of death for American children, and in 2022 things became even worse: The number of children killed in shootings increased by almost 12%, and those wounded increased by almost 11%.

Property crimes, by contrast, increased by 7.1%, driven by a continuing rise in auto thefts, which reached nearly 1 million in 2022.

The numbers present a mixed picture for politicians who have sought to make crime an election issue and to portray the country — particularly its big, Democratic-leaning cities — as awash in danger and disorder. Carjackings have increased in some areas, and so has retail theft, which harms local businesses.

But by and large the data contradicts the narrative that the country is facing a continued surge of violence.

“That explanation starts to look a lot shakier when you start seeing declines in major offenses,” said Ames Grawert, senior counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice in New York.