Memphis is on pace to set a new crime record, but Memphis police are solving fewer crimes

Memphis has a crime problem, and it's not a secret.

The city is regularly ranked in the top ten cities for high crime rates by various outlets, with constant news about the latest crime and with political officials focusing on it regularly, the topic seems inescapable.

Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy has called the rising crime rates in the city a "crisis," and hosted a large delegation of officials to discuss how best to tackle the problem.

Not a single one of the 17 candidates to be the next Memphis mayor has been able to avoid tackling questions about crime in the city — to the point of crime taking center stage at nearly every mayoral forum.

Memphians regularly hear anecdotes about people having their cars broken into, stores being burglarized and, of course, shootings that seem to happen daily.

But is Memphis crime the worst it has ever been? Looking at data that spans back to 1995, the answer to that question after 2022, seems to be, "no." But in 2023, it could be "yes."

The Commercial Appeal sifted through pages of public data, reports and charts from various agencies including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, the Memphis Shelby County Crime Commission and the nonprofit Murder Accountability Project — which reports data from the FBI — to see how crime Memphians are experiencing crime today compared to decades past.

The statistics reported by both the FBI and TBI come from the Memphis Police Department's own offense reporting.

Based on early data from TBI, which was distributed by the Memphis Shelby County Crime Commission, there were 35,449 major violent and property crimes reported by MPD through the first half of 2023. If the exact same number of offenses are reported during the last six months of the year, Memphis would have its highest crime rate since the FBI began publishing nationwide crime reports in 1995.

But a 6% drop in reported major violent and property crimes during the second half of the year, however, and Memphis would remain under that record high, which occurred in 1996. And Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland, in response to questions from The CA, said that the crimes being reported from multiple precincts have reduced during the third quarter of the year.

For the purposes of this article, crime over the years will be based on the city's crime rate, not based strictly on the number of crimes committed in a given year. The rate allows fair comparisons to be made based on Memphis' population changes.

Memphis' crime rate peaked in 1996

Memphis' highest recorded crime rate for major violent and property crime offenses was in 1996. At the time, the city's population was growing but was much lower than its recent peak in the mid-2000s. At the time, the crime rate sat at almost 1,113 reported crimes per 10,000 people.

FBI reports and data, which include national trends and local data, were available through 2021 and TBI's annual Crime in Tennessee Report was used for 2022. The earliest report available from TBI's website is from 2002. The CA used the same metrics to measure major violent and property crimes.

Those crimes include homicides, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, theft offenses and motor vehicle theft.

Memphis' crime rates abruptly dropped during the last three years of the 20th century but began to climb steadily in the early 2000s. It reached a peak in the 21st century in 2006 when the rate was about 1,035 per 10,000 Memphians.

Similar to the peak in the 90s, Memphis would start to see the crime rate drop over the next nine years and it reached its floor during this timespan. In 2015, the rate fell to 737 reported crimes per 10,000 Memphians. That was a 34% decrease from the high in 1996 and a 29% decrease from 2006.

That trend did not last, though, and the crime rate began to steadily rise before stagnating during the pandemic. During 2022, however, Memphis saw a sharp increase and the rate jumped to 982 offenses per 10,000 people.

Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland has long been outspoken about the city's problem with crime, along with the rising crime rate. Throughout his two terms as mayor, he has supported stricter sentencing laws and called for law enforcement to have a "zero tolerance" policy for gun crimes.

"Our decades-long challenge with crime has grown overall since the COVID pandemic of 2020, and all Memphians are needed to overcome it," Strickland said in an email response to questions from The CA. "Like most Memphians, I am angry and concerned. City government is doing everything in our power with urgency every day to combat it. We have zero tolerance for violent crime, are focused on car thefts and work to lock up as many criminals as possible, and divert as many young people away from criminal activity as possible."

Strickland also pointed to Connect Memphis, which is a program that allows Memphians and businesses to integrate their cameras with MPD, which allows the department quick access to security footage when a crime is reported. A lower level of the system allows residents to register their cameras with the department.

"Over 500 cameras are integrated cameras and over 3,600 cameras are registered," he said. "Atlanta has seen great success with their program, which began before ours, and they have over 30,000 cameras registered or integrated."

MPD Chief Cerelyn "C.J." Davis said new the Connect Memphis program has "already been an effective tool" for crime prevention and investigations. Davis also said software has helped the department focus on how officers are deployed, and allows them to find trends through crime data daily.

"With this software platform, precinct commanders have real-time crime data 24/7/365 to guide in deployment decision-making to hot-spot areas in the city," Davis said. "For the first time in several months, the MPD has seen reductions in part one crimes in problem areas. This effective crime-fighting strategy has set the department on a positive trajectory for continued crime reduction in 2024."

Often pointing to the "revolving door" of the criminal justice system — pointing to low bail amounts, "weak sentences," and "long delays in trials" — Strickland said just over half of the people arrested by MPD had been arrested in the past. It is not clear, based on the statistics he cited, how long ago those offenses took place.

"The message needs to be clear in Memphis: If you are charged with firing a gun at another person, you will be punished and spend many years in prison," Strickland said. "If you are arrested for theft of, or from, a motor vehicle, there will be significant consequences."

Though Strickland's staunch sentencing rhetoric has been a mainstay of his administration, which is coming to a close, he also acknowledged the "true long-term solution to crime is young people picking the right path instead of the wrong one."

"Young people need something productive to do when they are not in school, and a career after they finish school," he said. "Prior to the pandemic, we had greatly increased activities and participation in our community centers, libraries and parks, and while we have fully resumed the programming, youth participation has not yet reached pre-pandemic levels."

Strickland also pointed to an increase in summer jobs available for young Memphians, increased spending on Memphis parks and additional funding for school-related activities during the course of his administration as reasons for hope in providing opportunities for Memphis' youth.

Davis pointed to Memphis' high poverty rate, education, mental health resources and recidivism as major factors in Memphis' crime problem. According to her, the department responded to "more than 19,000 calls for service where mental illness was a factor."

"Departments throughout the nation in major and peer cities with comparable size and demographics are struggling with increased crime, and newly emerging crime nuances," Davis said. "The increase in juvenile crime being at the top of the list. Memphis as a city has greater challenges, i.e., poverty, education levels, mental illness, geographical service area and recidivism."

According to MPD, 53% of the people arrested in 2023 are recidivists. Davis said MPD counts recidivism as anyone who has been arrested multiple times — including those who are arrested while on bail and those who are arrested after finishing a prison sentence.

The problem with crime data in America

There is a fundamental problem with crime data in America, according to Eli Silverman, professor emeritus at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, who focuses on crime data collection and some of its shortcomings. Part of that problem, he said, is included as a disclaimer at the top of every FBI and TBI report about crime data.

"The first point to note is that the FBI data is contingent upon self-reporting from various jurisdictions, and there's very little auditing of it," Silverman said. "There's a great deal of fungibility, and the counting of crime is subjected to a great deal of manipulation."

That manipulation and fungibility, he said, is not always a byproduct of departments intentionally altering data and can sometimes be traced back to simply the differences in how cities and counties categorize crime. Though the FBI and TBI do not recognize the question of categorizing crime, in each report — which was in the third subhead of the introduction section of TBI's 2022 Crime in Tennessee report — the agencies explain the numerous factors that impact the data, and that ranking should be avoided.

Some of the aspects TBI listed in its latest report include population density, the population alongside the number of people coming into and out of the city, the economy, transportation types, the culture, family cohesiveness, climate and multiple other aspects of the criminal justice system.

Even comparing data over multiple administrations, according to Silverman, can be problematic.

"Unfortunately, you can't attach a great deal of credence to these reports," he said. "Even within the same jurisdiction, the way officers report crime may vary from year to year based on who's in charge of the police department, how reliable they are, how above board their reporting is and how they classify these crimes. I wish I could offer more certitude than that, but that's a reality."

Data from the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) system, which was retired in 2021, was also not nearly as detailed as the modern tracking used by the FBI and TBI. That system included "only the most serious offense" in any given incident. The CA has tried to remedy that by tracking crime rates in modern day with the same offense categories used by the FBI's UCR system.

But the reliability and constantly-changing nature of the data does not stop people from making comparisons, and trying to point out progress or regression, Silverman said.

"I think universal desire in this environment is to put on the best possible face to the public that we possibly can because it's in our own interest to show that we're preferable," he said. "So if we're seeking political power, or retaining political power, we want to cast ourselves in the most favorable light."

He did, however, specify that not all crime data is inaccurate. Even with the most accurate data available, he said there should be independent auditors of crime data to ensure that it is uniform and thorough — two things he said rarely happen when jurisdictions report their data to the FBI. TBI, in their 2022 report, said the data presented had been audited but did not say by whom.

"I think it's important to take all of this [data] with a grain of salt until it's examined by someone other than those who are reporting," Silverman said. "Self-reporting is often misleading, so unless there is an external group whose job is to independently assess the validity and the reliability of those statistics, then everything has to be taken with a grain of salt. You're relying on self-reporting, and self-reporting — naturally — will promote the self."

MPD's clearance rate drops as crime rises

MPD's clearance rates for all Group A offenses, which is a much broader category than major violent and property crimes, have been below the state average since, at least 2002. Over the last 20 years, on average, MPD has cleared about 23% of these Group A offense cases. All of Tennessee's agencies that report crime to TBI, including MPD, have averaged a 36% clearance rate in that same time frame.

MPD's clearance rate for these offenses stayed above 20%, but was never above 30%, for every year TBI produced its Crime in Tennessee report. However, in 2022, MPD dipped to an 18% clearance rate.

A crime is considered "cleared" when at least one arrest is made, and charges are filed. So, if multiple people were to steal a car, and one person was arrested, that crime would be categorized as "cleared."

Cleared cases also include something called an "exceptional clearance," both standards are set by the FBI.

"In certain situations, elements beyond law enforcement’s control prevent the agency from arresting and formally charging the offender," the FBI said in its definition of an exceptional clearance. "When this occurs, the agency can clear the offense exceptionally."

Conflating clearances with a "solved" crime is commonplace, Silverman said, adding that clearances are not the most accurate way to depict how many crimes are being solved, and that the true "solve rate" is likely much lower than a jurisdiction's clearance rate.

More: 'Get out of our silos.' Memphis, Shelby Co., state officials meet for crime summit

"We've had examples in this country where [law enforcement] get people to confess to multiple crimes," he said. "So those crimes are cleared, even if they haven't committed them and they've later been exonerated. Certain detectives have been known to put the pressure on people or get other people to say, 'Oh, yes, that person actually did it.' They may, in some cases, lean on the same person repeatedly to say that this person have [committed the crime]. That's another fudge factor."

As a means of consistency, The CA used TBI reports as they were initially published to compare clearances on a year-to-year basis. The numbers used in this article cite how many crimes are reported, and how many are cleared, within that year. In the years following each report's initial publication, the clearance rates for each year may be higher.

In spite of the low clearance rate for all Group A offenses, MPD once was above — or on par with — the national and state clearance rates for murders.

TBI began publishing its reports in 2002, and Memphis police reported clearing the most murder cases in 2004. That year, the department cleared almost 81% of its cases — slightly above the state's clearance rate and significantly higher than the national rate.

But the department would begin to clear fewer homicides in the years that followed. Three years later, in 2007, MPD would clear 58% of its murder cases, below both the statewide and national rates.

Though rebounding, and returning to above state and national rates, in 2010 at 73% of murders cleared, the department would continue its downward trajectory in clearing homicide cases.

That decline ultimately culminated in 2022's lowest clearance rate at 29% of murders. That clearance rate was lower than the statewide average, but clearances from departments around the country have not yet been publicly released by the FBI.

Elder said that TBI's report for clearance rates in the 2022 report was the result of a "glitch" that was not found and corrected by MPD until after TBI had "closed out" the system during its report.

Clearance rates across the country did, however, trend downwards in recent years according to multiple reports.

MPD has also struggled to close aggravated assault cases. A broad swath of cases fall into this category, which could include waving a weapon at someone or hitting another person with something besides your body. Non-fatal shootings also fall under the umbrella charge of aggravated assault.

The department was only slightly below the national and statewide clearance rates from 2006 to 2011, where it cleared between 52% and 45% of these types of crimes. But that rate slowly declined and MPD has fallen to clearance rates of 20% and 21% in 2021 and 2022, respectively.

Both Strickland and the Memphis Police Department disagreed with the clearance rates presented in the TBI reports. According to Strickland, in 2021, MPD cleared 66% of murder cases, and MPD said its clearance rates were much higher.

It is not exactly clear why there is such a large discrepancy between MPD's data and TBI's. Elder said the department counts warrants issued, along with indictments without having someone in custody, as a case clearance.

TBI and FBI data do not count warrants being issued in their clearance categories.

From 2012 until 2019, MPD published annual reports on its website that tracked the number of offenses reported, along with precinct data on clearances. Murders were not included in the department's raw data charts, and the clearance rate was listed in each report in a blanket percentage.

According to those reports, MPD's clearance rate was significantly higher than any year's TBI report and ranged from 65% to 80% of homicide cases cleared. According to MPD's more recent data, which includes 2020, 2021 and 2022, the department has cleared between 62% and 68% of homicide cases. MPD counts any death investigation, including suicides, accidental deaths and murders, in its homicide category.

Strickland, in response to questions about the difficulties in closing cases over the years, cited data analyst Jeff Asher's statements to The Atlantic in 2022 where he said guns have made murders more difficult to solve.

"The nature of murder in America is changing in ways we don't really talk about enough. You've got a bunch of cities where firearms make up 80 to 90 percent of murders today. That is the main driver. Guns make murders much harder to solve, and it leads to lower clearance rates everywhere," he told The Atlantic.

Asher went on to say there tend to be fewer witnesses, and less physical evidence, in murders where guns are used.

When asked if more pressure needed to be placed on MPD to clear cases instead of having so much focus on the courts, which are outside the jurisdiction of the city mayor, Strickland pushed back on the premise of the question.

"It is not either-or; we want both," he said. "We want more officers and investigators and a higher clearance rate, and we want stiffer penalties for the criminals arrested."

MPD staffing a question, even with largest department in Tennessee

The number of uniformed officers in Memphis has been a constant question in the Bluff City. Strickland has placed an emphasis on hiring officers, including salary raises and multiple bonuses for new hires and current officers recruiting new people.

The mayor said MPD needs to "continue to be the highest paid in the area." According to Strickland, MPD currently holds that title "for the first time in many years."

In 2021, accounting firm Deloitte, contracted by the City of Memphis, found that the department needed to hire almost 400 additional officers to keep up with the number of calls dispatchers were receiving.

Data reported to the FBI through 2019 showed the department had just over 2,000 sworn officers. That number places Memphis under a similar-sized city, like Detroit, but significantly higher than any other department in Tennessee. Should MPD hire those 400 officers, it would be nearly on par with Detroit, though it would still remain a smaller department.

Memphis also has larger departments when compared to nearby cities — including Atlanta, St. Louis, Louisville and New Orleans — and each city had a lower crime rate in 2019, per FBI data. The current MPD headcount, from the City of Memphis data hub, is also higher than all of those cities in 2019.

MPD in 2019, and even compared to its current staffing numbers, has more sworn officers than any city or county law enforcement agency reporting to the FBI in Alabama, Mississippi and Arkansas.

Hiring since that last batch of FBI data has not increased, even as Memphis remains the largest department in the state.

Memphis also faces a unique problem with being a sprawling city compared to other metropolitan areas. Though having roughly the same population as cities like Detroit and Baltimore, Memphis is about three times as large in terms of square mileage.

"We are over 320 square miles large, one of the largest cities in the country excluding consolidated governments which are the size of counties," Strickland said. "This, obviously, stretches patrols and other police services beyond most our sister cities."

When breaking down the rate of sworn police officers in terms of city areas, Memphis ends up with about 68 officers per 10 square miles.

That is far from the lowest in the region — and even the state — but still a lower rate of officers than cities like St. Louis, Atlanta and Baton Rouge which came in at 181.5, 117.4 and 71.4 officers per 10 square miles, respectively.

The Memphis Police Department still sported a rate over 2.5 times higher than Nashville, which had 26.85 police per 10 square miles.

Other cities that had a lower rate of police officers than Memphis included Charlotte, Indianapolis, Fort Worth, El Paso, Birmingham and Kansas City.

"The number of calls for service, and the city's huge geographical footprint, requires a higher compliment of officers to meet the demands for service," Davis said.

When accounting for the number of sworn police officers per 1,000 residents, Memphis had a higher rate than some cities that ranked above them in terms of police per square mile, including Milwaukee, Atlanta and Baton Rouge. Only Birmingham jumped above Memphis when accounting for this metric.

Crime and clearance rates, Silverman said, can be impacted by the number of officers working at a department. But he highlighted the quality of the officers being hired, and how the officers that are already working for the department are allocated as ways to increase clearance rates and lower the crime rate.

More: Fewer people arrested while out on bail since reforms, Shelby County court data shows

"It's not just about numbers, per se," he said. "It's how they are deployed, and how they are managed. You need a sufficient number, but you also need numbers that are experienced. What's happening in a lot of jurisdictions is they're hiring, but they've lost a lot of experienced detectives and are losing a lot of knowledge through that. The other thing is if you're hiring the right people. Often jurisdictions go, 'Oh, we have to hire more people,' and then hire people who might be the wrong people. Often those people who are hired in these large classes, there's a segment of them that are the most problematic."

Strickland said the department also has been trying to promote officers every two years since 2016. Since being in office, he said there have been 1,243 promotions.

The criminal justice system is filled with constantly changing pieces from families, to local law enforcement, to federal laws, and Strickland said though he does "embrace being held primarily accountable for reducing crime" as the city mayor, there needs to be an effort on all ends to curb crime.

"To truly address our crime challenge, it will take all of us — state and local officials, families, neighborhoods, churches, businesses — working together towards the long-term goal of reducing violent crime," he said. "With each murder, my heart breaks to see our citizens, especially our young people, taken from their families and friends due to senseless violence. I do believe that we will succeed on this front, but it will take all of us to create the Memphis we all deserve."

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 is on the rise, Memphis police's solve rate on the decline