Philadelphia Inquirer
Friday, November 6, 1998

Murder rate in Phila. has fallen almost 18%

By Clea Benson,
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

People are killing one another in Philadelphia at a slower pace this year than at any time since 1987.

The city's murder rate, which began dropping sharply at the beginning of the year, is still down significantly from 1997, according to the latest Police Department figures.

As of yesterday, there had been 282 killings, compared with 343 during the same period in 1997 - a drop of nearly 18 percent.

Police Inspector Jerrold Kane, commander of the homicide division and a statistics buff who has closely watched the murder rate during 43 years as a detective and police commander, predicts that the city will end the year with at least 15 percent fewer killings than last year.

That would be the biggest one-year percentage drop since 1984.

If the current homicide pace continues unchanged, there will be 339 slayings by year's end - 70 fewer than last year and the lowest yearly total since 1987, when there were 338.

Though top Police Department officials have acknowledged that underreporting of crime is widespread in the department, the homicide count is considered reliable.

Opinions vary as to what is causing the reduction. Some experts credit police crackdowns on guns, drugs, and nuisance crimes. Others cite the strong economy or a key demographic change: The number of people 16 to 24 years old, the age group most likely to commit crimes, is smaller than it was just a few years ago.

Another theory popular among criminologists is that the crack cocaine trade is now controlled by fewer and better organized sellers than in the late 1980s, when a larger number of unsophisticated dealers fought it out over turf, with bloody results.

``It may have to do with what the Police Department is doing,'' Kane said. ``It may be demographic. It may be economic. My sense is that crime [overall] is down.''

Homicides this year have played out in seemingly random fits and starts. During the first four months of the year, murders dropped 26 percent compared with the same period a year before. There was a 12-day period in late April and early May without a single reported killing, the first such streak in at least 10 years.

But later in the year, there was one weekend when eight people were fatally shot or stabbed.

The police districts with the most pronounced drops in homicide were in parts of North Philadelphia and West Philadelphia where the murder count traditionally has been high. The captains of some of those districts credited an increase in drug arrests.

In the 22d District, a swath of North Philadelphia west of Broad Street, there have been 16 homicides so far this year - 20 fewer than in 1997.

``My district narcotics teams made well over 100 arrests last week, and in one incident they seized a rifle and a gun,'' said Capt. David Mockus of the 22d, whose command area is a landscape of crumbling rowhouses and vacant lots where many of the murders are drug-related. ``They're making somewhat of an impact, I believe, on homicide.''

In the 19th District, a vast expanse covering parts of West Philadelphia, Wynnefield and Overbrook, slayings were down from 35 to 21.

``I believe it's several factors,'' said Capt. David Bloom, commander of the district. ``We have a very active community out here. . . . Our police department is targeting drugs more actively than they ever have. And there's a greater emphasis on preventive patrol and on getting guns off the street.''

The portion of homicides related to drugs has hovered around 40 percent this year, the same as in other recent years.

The percentage of homicides committed by gun - which has been higher in Philadelphia than in any other of the nation's 10 largest cities - has fallen slightly, from 82 percent last year to 79 percent.

Gun seizures are up by about 5 percent this year. Through Oct. 1, police across the city had seized about 2,738 guns, up from 2,601 during the same period last year. Yet the districts with the biggest drops in homicide did not tend to have big increases in gun seizures.

One place where homicides are down is the 25th District, which includes parts of Kensington, North Philadelphia and Fairhill. There were 54 killings, 11 fewer than last year, in that district, the center of the massive anti-drug effort dubbed Operation Sunrise that local, state, and federal authorities have been conducting since mid-year.

Temple University criminologist James Fyfe cautioned against attaching too much importance to the recent police efforts.

``The police can certainly do some things but the fact is that homicide rates have been decreasing everywhere regardless of the efforts of police,'' Fyfe said.

The current decline here brings Philadelphia in line with a trend that was already evident, and far more pronounced, in other cities. New York, the most often-cited example, has seen murders drop more than 70 percent over the past seven years.

``I think the two major reasons are the state of the economy and the maturation of the drug market,'' said Fyfe, referring to declining violence in the crack trade.

Killings of children 17 and younger, which saw a steep decline earlier in the year, stopped dropping in the second half of the year. By July, there had been 10 fewer slayings of children than in 1997, but by the end of October, 28 children had been killed - eight fewer than at the same time last year.

One community leader said the decline in murder reflected the impact of anti-violence programs aimed at young people.

``Almost 12 years ago, we began to go into the schools to talk to kids. I believed we could change their mind . . . and if we didn't do this, the death rate would have gone up dramatically,'' said C.B. Kimmins of Mantua Against Drugs. ``That's one of the things I would like to believe had an effect on what we're seeing today.''