Baltimore reported fewer homicides during the first half of this year compared with any similar period since 1970, a Banner analysis of city crime data found.
Notching another historic decline, the number of killings from Jan. 1 through June 20 fell 23% compared to a similar period a year earlier, according to the most recent data Baltimore Police submitted to the FBI.
The official tally for the first six months isn’t in yet. There were 46 homicides reported to the FBI through June 20. But more updated police records show an additional three homicides, bringing the latest total to 49 as of Tuesday morning.
It wasn’t just killings that declined.
Rapes were down 15% while robberies fell 12%, as of June 20, BPD data shows. Aggravated assaults, which includes nonfatal shootings, were an anomaly, increasing 12% for same time period.
Baltimore is likely benefiting from a national trend of declining violence over the last few years that researchers are working to explain more fully, said Daniel Webster, a professor at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health who has studied gun violence here for 30 years.
But that doesn’t explain the whole story, he said, because Baltimore’s decrease has been roughly twice as steep as the national average.
Webster credited Mayor Brandon Scott‘s Group Violence Reduction Strategy, a highly effective carrot-and-stick approach that targets shooters and those most likely to commit or fall victim to gun violence. The city’s top prosecutor, Ivan Bates, warrants accolades as well, Webster said, for prosecuting more cases and winning more convictions.
Baltimore Police, he added, also dramatically improved its clearance rates for violent crime.
“When you have better investigations and there’s more trust in police, you’re going to have more successful prosecutions,” Webster said. He added that the city’s improved track record in court has meant more people are choosing to participate in an intervention program to avoid ending up behind bars.
Baltimore is still relatively violent. Through April, the city recorded 469 violent crimes per 100,000 residents, more than triple the national rate, according to an analysis of the most recent data available from the Crime Index.
Joyce Green, president of the Police Department’s Central District Community Relations Council, gave props to the city’s improvement in relations between police and the community and Bates’ tough-on-guns messaging, recalling the prosecutor’s campaign slogan that those who carry guns should bring their toothbrush to court because he’d send them to jail.
Green said she is happy about the progress but sees much more room for improvement.
As of June 20, for example, there were three more nonfatal shootings in 2026 than the same timeframe the year prior.
Stopping people from pulling triggers will require a culture shift, said Green, a lifelong Baltimorean who has served in her role for 23 years.
“That’s how people solve problems,” Green said. “If they don’t get along with somebody, they want to shoot them.”
She concluded that “until we can change the mindset of people and teach people how to solve a problem by sitting down, talking and mediate some of these problems, people are going to keep shooting.”
Banner data editor Greg Morton contributed to this article.
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