Boston’s record on crime and safety has drawn national attention in recent weeks, as Mayor Michelle Wu prepares to testify before Congress about the city’s policies on immigration enforcement.
President Trump’s border czar Tom Homan has attacked Wu and police Commissioner Michael Cox over the city’s immigrant friendly policies, including city law that, in accordance with a state court ruling, prevents police from enforcing immigration law. And Wu’s critics have faulted the mayor in online forums, trying to paint Boston as a lawless, crime-ridden city — particularly after a fatal shooting last weekend.
But here’s what Boston Police Department data show: Some of the most concerning types of violent crime have declined dramatically in Boston since Wu first took office in November 2021.
Homicides fell by more than half, from 56 in 2020 to 24 last year, data from the BPD show. That total is the lowest in 67 years, and less than 20 percent of the total in 1990, the city’s most violent year on record.
That decline has made Boston an outlier among similarly sized US cities: In 2023, there were 150 homicides in Louisville, Ky.; 132 murders in Las Vegas; 73 homicides in Portland, Ore.; 85 in Denver; and 38 in El Paso, Texas.
Shootings also plummeted, from 274 in 2020 to 129 last year.
However, aggravated assaults and robberies remained consistent, while some types of property crime, like larceny, marginally increased.
Many cities across the United States, like Boston, have seen modest declines in homicides and other forms of violent crime in recent years, after a temporary surge during the COVID-19 pandemic.
As shootings have dropped citywide, crime in some of Boston’s most heavily trafficked areas has still sparked concerns from business owners, residents, and neighborhood civic groups. Wu met with business leaders from the Downtown Boston Alliance last week to address the spread of public drug use since the city removed encampments of homeless people near the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard.
Larceny rates in the Downtown Crossing and Boston Common areas remained elevated in 2024, though the numbers fluctuate year-to-year, according to Boston police statistics.
Meanwhile, the number of downtown robberies, which involve the threat of force, were also elevated, but not as high as in 2020.
And on Saturday evening, a violent incident in Copley Square drew focus to safety in the heart of Boston’s historic Back Bay neighborhood. An off-duty Boston police officer shot and killed 32-year-old Roslindale resident Lemark Jaramillo in a Chick-fil-A restaurant, after Jaramillo allegedly chased two people into the restaurant while wielding a knife and threatening to stab them.
The number of nondomestic aggravated assaults reported in Back Bay has fluctuated but remained roughly steady over the last nine years, according to police statistics. Robberies in the neighborhood last year numbered the fewest since at least 2016, while larceny reports remained elevated.
Thomas Abt, director of the Violence Reduction Center at the University of Maryland, has worked with police and public officals in Boston, Memphis, St. Louis, Missouri, and Knoxville, Tenn., to craft strategies for reducing shootings and homicides. He said Boston has a long track record of creating effective antiviolence programs, which has helped reduce homicides in recent years.
“Boston has been recognized nationally for large drops in violence,” Abt wrote in an email. “What you see with Boston is a consistent overperformance against the national trend.”
Scooty Nickerson can be reached at scooty.nickerson@globe.com.