Jacksonville homicides in 2023: Here's who is dying and where they are dying

As Jacksonville has reached the 50-homicide mark, this year on May 2 one day later than in 2022, The Times-Union continues to document the city’s violence for nearly 20 years — officially back to 2006.

The Times-Union compiles its database with a summary of who, what, where, when and why from information available through police or public records. The Times-Union updates the data when there’s an arrest and other developments. However, victim names often aren't available due to the state's Marsy's Law that allows families to keep them private.

Here's what have we learned: Among this year's first 50 victims, only two were youths (16 and 17 years old in this case) compared to five at this time last year (four 17-year-olds and one 15). The overwhelming majority of victims were Black with 41 as opposed to eight white and one Hispanic. That compares to 33 Black victims, 15 white and two Hispanic among the first 50 victims in 2022. The locations of killings so far this year have been much more spread out with the deadliest ZIP code being 32209 in the Moncrief area with eight followed by six in the 32218 ZIP code near the airport. Last year 32210 on the Westside in the 103rd Street area was the most dangerous ZIP code to live in as far as homicides go with 12 at the 50 mark. North Jacksonville's 32218 again registered the second most with 11 at that point.

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In 2022, the city recorded its 50th homicide on May 1, and concluded the year with 167. In 2021, the city saw 129 homicides, and in 2020, 177, the highest in recent memory. The all-time record is unclear, but The Times-Union has been told there were even more in the 1980s.

The lowest total since the newspaper has kept track was 86 in 2011, only the second year to record fewer than 100 homicides. The other was in 2010 when 96 homicides were recorded.

At No. 50, 2023's homicides mean 2,252 people are among the city’s casualties since 2006. In the last decade, Jacksonville averages 130 homicides per year, about one homicide every couple of days.

Here's a closer look at the 2023 data and how it compares to recent years.

How many homicides have been recorded in Jacksonville this year vs. last year?

KEY STATISTICS

A closer look at who is dying in Jacksonville's homicides this year.

Victims, by gender

2023: Gender of homicide victims
Infogram

Victims, by age

Victims, by race

All 2023 homicides in Jacksonville

Here's a closer look at all of the homicides in Jacksonville this year, including what we know about each one, including the victim's name, cause of death and more. (View additional homicide details by clicking or tapping on the entry or see more homicide entries by scrolling down.)

What's the long-term trend of homicides in Jacksonville?

Since 2003, when the Times-Union began its recordkeeping of the city's homicides, Jacksonville saw a low of 86 homicides in 2011 and a high of 177 — more than double the 2011 total — in 2020. Only twice since 2003, in 2010 and 2011, has the city recorded fewer than 100 homicides in a year.

About this data

As a footnote, The Times-Union’s numbers may vary somewhat from the Sheriff’s Office due to some procedural differences. As the Sheriff's Office updates its numbers with developments, perhaps a new ruling on whether a case is a homicide or not or perhaps one where the individual died several days later, it often does not alert the media. So sometimes updates may go unnoticed. In addition, the Sheriff's Office sometimes isn't consistent on what homicides are included — for instance on the death of a fetus when the mother is killed, out-of-jurisdiction cases at the Beaches or deaths that occur from a previous year. It’s usually only a matter of a couple of cases though.

The Times-Union tries to maintain consistency in how the newspaper's numbers are reported. So these statistics do not reflect deaths in the Beaches municipalities that are outside of the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office's jurisdiction. Occasionally, JSO is asked to handle one or two of these cases and subsequently counts them as one of its own. Atlantic, Jacksonville and Neptune beaches typically only have a couple of homicides each year.

The other terminology to note is the difference between a homicide and a murder: They are not interchangeable. Murders do not include justifiable actions such as self-defense or just cause; homicides do. So homicide numbers will always be higher than the murder totals that law enforcement agencies include in their Uniform Crime Reporting to the FBI.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Jacksonville homicides in 2023: Deaths by race, gender, age