MPD: Memphis crime is mostly down, homicides create perception of 2023 crime increase

Crime fell over the last six months of 2023, and continued to drop through the first month of 2024, data from the Memphis Police Department indicated.

Despite 2023 having an overall rise in crime, MPD Deputy Chief Joe Oakley said the last six months of the year prevented a record-high crime rate in Memphis. The trend at the end of the year, Oakley said, has continued with a drop across major violent and property crimes compared to this time last year.

But residents may not feel that increase due to a 5.6% increase in homicides compared to this time in 2023.

"It's hard. It's really, really hard to feel like there's a decrease in crime in Memphis right now because our homicides have just been popping the way that they are," said MPD Public Information Officer Theresa Carlson. "It's been like that for so long, but there are areas where we've seen that we're having success."

Inside a conference room at MPD's Real Time Crime Center, Oakley showed The Commercial Appeal the most recent data the department had collected. So far this year, aggravated assaults are down 15% compared to this time last year. Auto thefts are down just over 34%. Other thefts are down 12%, and burglaries are down 15%.

Reported rapes, according to MPD data, are also down so far this year with a 34% drop compared to this time last year.

"We slowed the increase of our auto thefts, our theft from motor vehicles have dropped," Oakley said. "So the two main crime drivers of this city have been dropping. We know homicide is not."

Strategic planning meetings credited for drop

Through the first six months of 2023, Memphis was on pace to break its single-year crime record, which was set in 1996. By the end of June, crime was up 31% compared to that same time frame in 2022. The slowing that Oakley referenced came at the end of the year when he said there were 15.6% more crimes reported than in 2022. While that was an increase year-over-year, it was a markedly lower increase that trends from the first half of the year had indicated.

"When we say, 'We dropped crime,' we are talking about overall, part one crime because there are some we didn't drop — like homicide, because we had a record year," Oakley said. "So people are twisting that. We did drop the overall crime increase by 15%."

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Oakley attributes the drop to MPD Chief Cerelyn "C.J." Davis and multiple "strategic planning retreats."

"During those, I go up and present my stuff," Oakley said. "I show what the crime [rate] is, what each precinct does and then their tasks. Each precinct is tasked with developing a strategic crime plan to drop the crime in their area. We want to attack crime citywide, but each precinct has a part in this citywide crime.

"We're planning another one soon. You know, [Davis] loves having these meetings, and they've definitely been successful."

Indicative of that success, Oakley said, is that all precincts are showing a drop in crime compared to last year.

Oakley also pointed to the growth seen in MPD's Connect Memphis program, which allows residents to register or integrate cameras with the department, as part of the success in lowering crime.

Camera integration allows investigators to tap into a live feed, and look back over some stored footage, of any camera connected to a transmitter so long as the owner allows it. Registered cameras show up on a map, but do not let MPD tap directly into them, allowing an investigator to reach out to a homeowner for footage from an incident that might have occurred nearby.

Oakley touches on specifics that could further lower crime

Though touting lowering crime numbers, Oakley said the prevalence of thefts from delivery trucks and ease of car thefts.

Oakley said the rash of delivery truck thefts could be reduced with the addition of padlocks to the trailers.

"Why don't they put padlocks on the trailers? Or a locking mechanism?" Oakley said. "It's just this little piece of wire. Next time you get behind [a delivery truck], look at it. It's going to be either yellow, red or green and it's going to not be thick. Why not put a big padlock on it and give the driver a key, or a combination lock so everybody in the company has the combination? They're just sitting ducks. These folks will pull up and they'll break in and get whatever they want.

"You know how much crime we could drop if they made it harder to break into a truck and trailer?"

MPD has also been pushing the state legislature to limit who can own key fob programmers, which make stealing cars easier.

"Tennessee is only one of two states in the country that has no laws about owning a key programmer," Oakley said. "So we wrote legislation to set it up so that it is illegal to possess a key fob programmer unless you are a car dealer or a locksmith."

Oakley said key programmers are part of what makes it easy for kids to steal a car, and they are able to buy them online cheaply.

"We locked up a kid — I think he was 15 or 16 — a juvenile who had never been arrested," he said. "He told us when we locked him up with a key fob programmer, 'I ordered it online and wanted to see if I can do it.' And he couldn't do it very well because he got arrested the first time. Now he has a record just for that. He shouldn't have done it, but why make it so easy?"

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Other initiatives, like recovering stolen firearms and making sure they are locked have also been a focus for MPD. One of the biggest problems the department faces is gun theft victims not knowing their serial numbers. Because of that, Oakley and Carlson said that it is difficult to know when a stolen gun is recovered or used in a crime.

Carlson recommended people write down their gun's serial number, adding that most stolen guns do not have those filed off because most people don't know the number to begin with.

MPD also offers free gun locks at all of their precincts that residents can pick up.

Lucas Finton is a criminal justice reporter with The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached at Lucas.Finton@commercialappeal.com, or (901)208-3922, and followed on X, formerly known as Twitter, @LucasFinton.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Memphis police say overall crime is down to start 2024, except homicide