New Issue Brief: What Drives Homicide Trends? 

Homicide spikes tend to be most severe in the places and among the demographic groups that already have high homicide rates 

NEW YORK, NY — Nationwide, homicide surged in 2020 and 2021, before slowly decreasing over 2022 and 2023. What was behind that spike in murders? Some have faulted racial tensions, policing, and Covid disruptions. In a new issue brief, Manhattan Institute fellow Robert VerBruggen documents homicide trends in the nation’s largest cities and explores the data for patterns. 

Using a mix of sources—including the Real-Time Crime Index from AH Datalytics, the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports, and the CDC’s mortality records—VerBruggen breaks down the data into three periods: the Baseline (2018–19), the Spike (2020– 21), and the Recovery (2022–23). VerBruggen finds homicide spikes tended to be most severe in the places and among the demographic groups that already had high homicide rates. That said, there is some evidence suggesting that policing and unemployment also play a role. 

VerBruggen analyzes how murder trends vary across major cities, noting how well they recovered after the spike. The most notable cities include: 

• Portland, while starting from a low baseline, saw the largest homicide spike in proportional terms—with its rate more than doubling—and continued to get worse as the nation as a whole recovered. The city redirected police funding and cut a gun-violence prevention team in 2020 owing to worries about racial disparities, and it has suffered a subsequent police-staffing crisis.
• Minneapolis, home to the George Floyd killing, also saw its murder rate double and afterward recovered only slightly. Fortunately, like Portland, the city still has a rate well below cities such as St. Louis or Baltimore, and early 2025 data suggest further recovery.
• Cleveland, Memphis, Milwaukee, and New Orleans all had high baseline homicide rates above 15 per 100,000 and experienced spikes of at least 40%. They recovered less than one-third in the 2022-23 period.
• St. Louis nearly fully recovered, but to an extremely high baseline. It has the highest homicide rate in the sample across all three periods.
• Miami, Buffalo, and Nashville experienced spikes of at least 20% but recovered to within 10% of their starting values.
• Baltimore has the second-highest baseline homicide rate in the data (54 per 100,000, behind only St. Louis). It experienced a relatively small spike and therefore ranks toward the bottom of the list. However, following the April 2015 death of Freddie Gray, Baltimore homicides skyrocketed and remained high until the beginning of the main data set used in this brief.  

It is crucial to understand the dynamics driving homicide spikes, so that policymakers can prevent conditions conducive to such surges and can gain a stronger understanding of what drives crime in general. In the event of future social upheaval, policymakers should concentrate additional anticrime efforts on places that already have elevated rates of violence—and carefully consider, given the cause of the upheaval and the facts on the ground, any trade-offs that remove people from work or school or that reduce policing. 

 Click here to read the full brief.