Crime rates slow through June, still up from 2022, crime commission data shows

Lucas Finton, Memphis Commercial Appeal
Updated ·3 min read
Crime rates for Memphis and Shelby County have begun to slow down, though are still up from 2022, according to the latest batch of data from the Memphis Shelby County Crime Commission.
Crime rates for Memphis and Shelby County have begun to slow down, though are still up from 2022, according to the latest batch of data from the Memphis Shelby County Crime Commission.

The increase in crime rates across the City of Memphis and Shelby County is slowing as the year progresses, data from the Memphis Shelby County Crime Commission indicates.

The crime commission released its quarterly data update, which tracks crime trends across the city and county.

Earlier this year, the organization released statistics from Jan. 1 of this year through the end of March. That data showed a 7.7% increase in violent crime and a 43.8% increase in property crime for Memphis and a 5.4% increase in violent crime and a 42.1% increase in property crime for the rest of the county between 2022 and 2023.

Data taken from the county does not include Memphis.

In the latest batch of data, which recorded crime statistics from Jan. 1 until the end of June, the violent and property crime rates for Memphis were up 6.7% and 37.8%, respectively. In the county, violent and property crime rates increased 4.9% and 35.1%.

The lower crime rates could be indicative of either a high number of crimes being reported during the first three months of the year and a lower number of reported crimes in the three months since the previous batch of data.

"A lot of effort is being placed into tackling aggravated assaults," said Bill Gibbons, the president of the crime commission. "That includes the creation of a special unit within the Memphis Police Department to investigate aggravated assaults involving the discharge of firearms and scaling up intervention efforts by the City of Memphis to head off retaliatory acts of violence. Still, violent crime remains alarmingly high."

How do the rates shake out for individual crimes?

The increased crime rate throughout the rest of Shelby County appears, from the data sent out by the crime commission, to be driven by the jump in vehicle thefts. The motor vehicle theft rate has seen a 129.2% increase compared to this time in 2022.

However, the murder, rape and aggravated assault rates have all dropped across Shelby County.

  • The reported murder rate dropped 45.8%

  • The reported rape rate dropped 16.3%

  • The reported aggravated assault rate dropped 18.9%

There was a slight increase in the reported burglary rate of 0.62% — from 112.4 to 113.1 reported burglaries per 100,000 Shelby County residents.

The reported rates for robberies and thefts increased by 10.1% and 3.8%, respectively, in the county.

The increased crime rate in Memphis has also been driven by a 130.3% increase in the motor vehicle theft rate, however none of the crime categories that the crime commission tracks saw a rate decrease in the city.

The rate of reported murders, rapes, aggravated assaults and robberies — the violent crimes tracked by the crime commission — each rose 59.1%, 2.8%, 3.3% and 20%, respectively.

The two other property crime rates, burglaries and thefts, rose 16.2% and 18.3%, according to the crime commission's data.

Lucas Finton is a criminal justice reporter with The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached at Lucas.Finton@commercialappeal.com and followed on Twitter @LucasFinton.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Crime commission data shows crime rates slowing, though still up