Understanding Atlanta Crime Trends

Much is often made of crime trends here in Atlanta. It's been a concern for citizens when news headlines focus on it, a political football, and used as a reason for drastic changes like breaking the city itself apart.

Let's take a look at what the data can tell us!

There were a ton of bad narratives around the 2021 increase in crime. So let's use that as our example.

Now this is a carefully curated chart, showing only the details highlighted repeatedly in popular discussions.

Aggravated Assaults increased an average of 11% per year from 2019 to 2021, and Homicides increased about 21.5% per year over the same period! No wonder people are scared!

But, as with most things, context can be helpful here! First, let's zoom out a little.

Now we have some better context. Most crime is continuing to decrease significantly each year, and many of the heart-stopping spikes now look almost tame compared to numbers just a few years prior.

Aggravated Assaults were higher as recently as 2014. Homicides are still relatively low as a historical trend, but have been increasing since 2017, and the rate of increase nearly plateaued in 2021.

We also see why those using crime to sell papers or politics are only using anecdotes and very narrow statistics. It's misleading to give the relative increase of only one type of crime without also explaining that is an increase from what was the lowest crime rate in at least 3 decades.

So what are the causes? What can we do about it?

Proposed causes and solutions, far too often, fall along partisan lines and are presented as easy, obvious, and simple. Reality is rarely so simple though.

Let's review some popular notions and see whether the data bears them out?

There is no direct correlary between the number of cops we have on the streets and the number of crimes.

This is unsurprising. Studies have shown that crime has decreased over the last several decades regardless of head counts. Spending doesn't have a direct correlation either.

Cops serve important civil functions, and many find an increased presence of cops comforting. But cops are not the only factor in crime rates. To the extent they are a factor, it's far more important how officers are deployed, and what tools they are given.

Violent altercations amongst friends, nearly 1,800 guns being stolen from the cars of irresponsible gun owners, these are things no number of cops will completely prevent. Our safety is dependent on far more social factors than just enforcement.

In the two areas that did see increases, the trends started increasing from 2018, long before the protests in 2020.

Did trends shift in 2020? Yes! So did many other factors that year. Such as unemployment, homelessness, social fear, 100's of thousands of deaths from a pandemic, and political fears.

APD also has indicated a significant increase in violence and killings stemming from domestic disputes between friends and acquaintances.

Any narrative attributing the changes in crime to a single factor can be dismissed as embarrasingly reductive, or worse, intentionally misleading.

No. The increases we've seen do not suggest that we are in far more danger today than we were in say 2019.

Let's look at our risk as a percentage per capita.