Today, Explained - America’s miraculous murder decline

Episode Date: July 23, 2025

Over the last two years, crime rates have been plunging in cities across America. In Baltimore, gun crime is at the lowest it’s been in decades. This episode was produced by Miles Bryan, edited by Jolie Myers, fact checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Patrick Boyd and Andrea Kristinsdottir, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. Listen to Today, Explained ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Transcript at vox.com/today-explained-podcast. Young men at ROCA, a Baltimore non-profit serving youth at risk of gun violence. Photo by Miles Bryan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Knock, knock. Who's there? It's Miles Bryan, senior producer and reporter for this program. And Sean, I'm here with a good news story. Good news? Do today explain listeners like good news? Let's find out together. What is it, Miles?

Well, the story is summed up in one statistic that I just find astonishing. The United States homicide rate is falling faster now than it ever has in the history of our data on this, which goes back to the early 1960s. And this year Sean, 2025, is on track to have what could be the lowest homicide rate ever recorded. Hmm amazing because I'm old enough to remember the great COVID-19 pandemic and the spiking crime that came thereafter. Me too. We covered it on this show. But quietly, the whole country has been going through a sort of miraculous recovery in the last couple of years. And I think the story of Baltimore helps explain how that happened. Take us to Charm City, Miles.

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Terms and conditions apply. Visit bmo.com slash VI Porter to learn more. Baltimore. All right, today explained here with Miles Bryan, who's here to talk about crime in Baltimore. Miles, how many seconds can we go without you mentioning The Wire? Very few. I actually... Zero.

I actually wanted to start this story with The Wire, you know, for the listeners who haven't seen it. It's this beloved HBO series about crime and policing in Baltimore. It ran from 2002 to 2008. It's where Idris Elba comes from. And Michael B. Jordan. Oh my gosh, what a show. Okay. What are we doing? All right. I wanted to start with the show because it's not just Baltimore's national reputation. It's where this specific story of crime and policing starts.

I don't know if you've watched The Wire lately, but the police tactics in that show are pretty brutal. Some of the street level cops are depicted as just being sort of head bashers. Hands on the wall, fuckers. And listen to me, you little fucking piece of shit. I'm gonna tell you one thing and one thing only about the Western boys you are playing with.

We do not lose! And this is the Baltimore that Brandon Scott grew up in. I am Brandon Scott, the 52nd mayor of the city of Baltimore, the greatest city in America. All right, coming right out swinging. Scott's 41, but he looks younger than me, which is frankly offensive. He grew up in a neighborhood called Park Heights, which has been poor and violent for a long time. And Scott says he got harassed by cops

roaming around wire style as a kid. When I was growing up in Baltimore, I was a data point, right? I was a young black man in Park Heights. I was a data point. But I was a data point that they looked at as an issue to solve. Scott always wanted to get into politics, even as a kid, and he gets hired as a city council staffer right after college.

In 2011, he's elected to Baltimore City Council, and that's where he is in 2015, when Freddie Gray dies in police custody. Freddie Gray, huge national story that casts an unfortunate light on Baltimore. Remind people what happened? Yeah, so he was a black man in his mid-20s. In the spring of 2015, Baltimore police arrest him near the public housing complex where he lived. They put him in the back of a police van with his legs shackled and hands cuffed. During the ride, he suffers a severe spinal cord injury.

He died a week later. And his death set off these huge protests. We are not the enemy. I'm tired of seeing this. It's too much. It's gone too far. And all I'm begging them to do is hold these cops accountable. Those protests eventually turned into riots. Today a small group of agitators became violent, targeting police with bricks and burning abandoned squad cars. We can tell you hundreds of police officers are now pouring into this area. The National Guard is now on standby. And Councilman Scott is out there.

He's been doing anti-violence work for years at that point. And he's pleading with protesters to be peaceful and take cues from local leaders. Do you believe that tonight will be different than last night? Yeah. And he's pleading with protesters to be peaceful and take cues from local leaders. But a lot of people don't listen to him. And then something starts happening right after this period of unrest. There's a huge spike in gun violence in Baltimore. In 2014, the year before Freddie Gray died, Baltimore had 211 murders.

The next year it saw 344. For comparison, New York City, which has more than 10 times as many people, had about the same number of murders that year. Yikes. Yeah, and at the same time, instead of seeing the number of arrests skyrocket alongside the violent crime,

you see the opposite happen. Baltimore police pulled back. And this doesn't sit right with Scott either. He feels like the police slowdown was missing the point. Even during Freddie Gray, right, if you were talking to my grandmother and her friends, you'd never heard black people who had lived in Baltimore for a long time who have lived and experienced these things say that we don't want any policing Right. My grandmother never said she didn't want any place in my neighborhood

What she would say is that she she wanted policing in our neighborhood that we're focusing in on who they need to be focused on And not me or my brothers just because simply because we were making the three minute walk from her house to my house, right? That's the difference. But Baltimore's police keep making fewer and fewer arrests and the city sees more and more homicides. This kind of happened across the country. I'm not sure if the timelines align,

but we heard a lot of this after George Floyd during the pandemic, a lot of police forces in response to, you know, ACAB and abolish the police pullback. Yeah, Freddie Gray was a Baltimore thing, but the whole country went through basically the same experience five years later, when George Floyd was murdered.

The anger, the unrest, the police pullback, and the spike in violence. And in Baltimore, gun crime just stayed elevated when COVID hit and when George Floyd was killed. And Baltimore sort of going through it politically during those years. The mayor during that time, Catherine Pugh, is indicted and forced to resign

when she gets caught trading city contracts to organizations willing to buy large amounts of copies of her children's book. Relatable, but this creates an opening for Scott. He decides to run for mayor and he runs on a platform of getting gun violence down. As mayor, I will focus on addressing the root causes of crime and investing in our communities, all while acting with the urgency to address the violence we see on a day-to-day basis. And in late 2020, he won. The goal was very simple.

We were going to reduce the number that has sunk many Baltimore mayors for years by 15% from one year to the next, and that was homicides. Okay, so Mayor Scott's coming to this with perhaps unique vantage. He's seen over-policing as a kid where he was profiled a bunch, and now he's seeing under-policing as a politician who's trying to get the crime rates down. What's he do?

So Scott goes all in on a crime-fighting strategy known as focused deterrence. It was developed in Boston in the 90s, and it's based on this fact. There's a small group of people, mostly young men, in every city who are most likely to be both gun violence victims and gun violence perpetrators to shoot or be shot.

Every week, the cops, the prosecutors, the mayor's office, and anti-violence groups, they meet to discuss recent shootings and find people in those shootings orbit, the people in that small group. And what that looks like on the ground is that we actually go to many of these folks first and give them the opportunity to change their life.

That approach comes with a carrot and a stick. And they actually get a letter from me as the mayor that says, I know who you are, I know what you do essentially, and we want you to stay alive for you and your family. But in order to do that, you have to change the way that you live in. The letter says like, sincerely, Mayor Scott.

Yeah, we can show you a copy of one of the letters. Ahem, quote, first we would like to help you. We can offer you education, job training, job placement, emergency assistance, and other services. We're eager to help you succeed and we'll do anything we can to support you and your friends. That's nice.

Yeah. And that's what's new here. Baltimore's tried focused deterrence before, but never with this kind of concerted effort to provide social services to people at risk of being involved in gun violence. But there's also the threat of the stick if you don't take the carrot. Oh. Here's more from the letter. We will be looking at probation and parole violations, outstanding warrants, open cases, cold cases, drug sale and possession violations, unpaid fines and child support, weapons charges, any and all legal violations committed by members of violent groups. Basically, we're watching you and we're going to find a way to get you if you don't stay

on the straight and narrow. Okay, so this letter's got the carrot, and it's got the stick. Also, it's a piece of paper that's tried to affect gun violence. How does it go? Well, you know, it's a whole strategy. But at first, the strategy does not look like it's going great. Mayor Scott starts ramping it up in 2021,

but the number of killings that year stays high. 2022 is even worse. That spring, Maryland's then governor, Republican Larry Hogan, attacked Scott for the lack of progress. It's pronounced Hogan. Hogan. The first year, we didn't hit our goal. And there was a lot of pressure to change, but we did not change the strategy.

I said when I first took office that I'm going to do the right thing, not the popular thing, even if it means I get unelected, because I've lived it. If zero-talented policing was the solution to public safety in Baltimore, I wouldn't be here because we'd have all we'd have been a safe city when I was a child and I've been chosen to do something else with my life, right? And slowly the numbers start going their way. Down. Yeah. 2022 saw 333 killings.

In 2023 that number was 261. In 2024 it was 201. And so far this year Baltimore has only seen about 80 killings, the lowest number for that stretch in 50 years. Okay, we're going to find out more about what's going right in Baltimore. Was it just the letter? Or was there something else going on? And the rest of the country.

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got their violent crimes to go down. Right, so the strategy that Baltimore is pursuing is focused deterrence, focusing on the small group of guys at high risk for shooting or being shot. And there's a shift in the policing part of that. They start making more arrests and prosecuting more gun crimes. But the other part of the strategy is outreach. The people I talked to for this story kept pointing me towards an organization called ROCA. It's a nonprofit that does outreach to 16 to 24 year olds who are considered high risk who are on that list.

What's ROCA stand for? I think it's just ROCA. No way. Oh, it's low case. Interesting. ROCA is one of the main partners working with the police in Baltimore's focus deterrence program. The police find these people and refer them to ROKA, and then ROKA goes out and tries to get them to join up. And if they do, they're signing up for a combination therapist, job training program, and there's

even a gym. Nice. Yeah, they learn cognitive behavioral therapy to try and get a handle on their impulses. They get paid work doing things like cleaning up city parks. They can get their GED. When I was talking to the program staff about this, I was thinking like, okay, this sounds good to me, a nerdy reporter, but what kind of teenager wants to do all this stuff? Then I ran into a crew of guys who'd been out working who were back for lunch. Why you ain't bring me real with the oranges? You ain't asking the one.

I don't ask for the oranges. I already more than ask you for the oranges. What's for lunch, guys? I didn't break real. I didn't break real. I didn't break real. I didn't break real. Oranges, Miles, you just said it.

Look, I can't say I wasn't awkward, but they were nice enough to let me ask those questions anyway. And I asked them what they thought was working in the city to get gun violence down. Huh? Yeah, well, it's not. And these guys were like, look around you. But Rookla, probably the best thing that ever happened for Baltimore.

Like, it changed a lot of people's lives. Like, everybody. You guys aren't just saying that because we're at Rookla. No, I'm saying it because it changed my life. I've been in this program since what? 2023, right? I came home in 2023. January 10th, 2023, I came home for real. I got a book full of gum for real. I was locked up when I came home. Like I'm saying from then to now, my whole mindset changed a life.

I think way different. You learn mannerism. You learn mannerism. That's the work right there. You know mannerism. You learn mannerism. That's the work, that's the work right there. You know, it's nice. Yeah, Roka reaches hundreds of young men in Baltimore every year. According to their own stats, for young guys who stay enrolled in the program

for at least two years, 80% have no new arrests and 92% don't go back to prison. Okay, so the kids are really impressed with Roka and it sounds like Rca's working for Baltimore. But how do you get someone who's, like, I don't know, just immersed in a gang or in some turf war or something, or making money, dealing drugs, to come to Roca? Yeah, I think that's the real sticky question here.

Like, my sense is when they're in, they're in. But getting them to get involved can be tough. It's a lot of door knocking, a lot of following up. I actually went out with a Roca outreach worker who goes by Pastor John. I'm a youth worker, technically from nine to five. But the guys know that I'm a pastor 24 seven. I never turn that off. Pastor John got into being a youth worker

after doing a stint in prison for dealing drugs. These days, he's all about his guys. We went to check in with one of them. Yes, he's actually going to come down. OK, what's this fellow's name? His name is James. James. Hold on Pastor John, I'm coming down.

I'm on a jail call. I'm coming down now. James hopped in our car. What's going on, James? Another day, another day. Off, I'm coming down, I'm on a jail call, I'm coming down now. James hopped in our car. What's going on, James? Another day, another day. Off, I'm off today. The whole time we talked, he kept his phone on speaker. I'm on a jail call with my brother here,

just giving some motivational advice, you feel me? And that's all just cooling, I'm just chilling. Everything going good with the job? Yeah, everything going good. It's a cool job for real, easy money. James is 19, and he's doing great now, but a couple of years ago he was struggling. He got arrested for a gun charge, identified as a high-risk person likely to shoot or be shot and referred to ROKA. So when I first started off it was rough for me. I wasn't talking to my mentors, none of that. They

was reaching out to me. I wasn't reaching back. It was rough. His initial introduction into Roca was rough. James and the pastor were obviously tight. And on the way back I asked him how that came to be. Unfortunately for him, the catalyst, the thing that triggered him to really get him on the right track was his brother was killed. He was the guy that was on my caseload. And I ended up being the pastor at his funeral and I preached at his funeral. That's when I met that young man and he just came and gave me a hug and he was weeping and he was like I need you know I need Roker. I really need Roker. From that point on he'll pick up the phone Pastor John I need to talk to you. This happened at work today, Pastor John. I got robbed, they stole my paycheck.

You know, I'm feeling some kind of way. You know, all my guys are like, come on, let's go get him and doing stuff like that, but he's never acted on that. That is so much work and luck and coincidence just to, for one guy to help pull him on the right path. It's kind of amazing. It is. It's absolutely amazing. But I don't take any credit for it. Like I said, Roka was here long before I ever did. I just thank them for giving me the opportunity to share that with these young men.

Okay, Miles, help me with something because this sounds great, but the program itself doesn't sound new. We've talked about violence interrupters on this show before. They've been doing this stuff for a long time in cities across the country. What makes something like Roca so special in this moment or other factors here? You know, I think Baltimore's focus deterrence strategy and stuff like Roca has actually moved the needle, but I don't think it explains the whole picture. Baltimore has seen this huge decrease in gun crime, but so have many other American cities, right? Like the whole country. And after talking

to a bunch of experts, and more helpfully, that group of kids at lunch, I think there's at least three other national factors worth mentioning. What are they? Okay, first, most obviously, the end of the pandemic. They closed all the fields and all the gyms, so we had nothing to do but be outside. In most cities, gun crime spiked in 2020, right? During that time, schools were shut down, malls were closed, basketball hoops were taped off. All that stuff's back open now. I feel like what's stopping everything is it's more stuff to do now. Like it's more activities, more you feel me, the pool's open now.

Okay, so everything opens back up and that helps. What else? The second factor I think can be summed up in one word, exhaustion. A lot of older guys locked up for real, for real. Like they really pay a certain influence on young niggas for real, for real. Gun violence feeds on itself, right? One shooting leads to two retaliatory shootings, which leads to four more and on and on. I talked to Daniel Webster,

a criminologist at Johns Hopkins, who says that cycle tends to exhaust itself. A lot of the people involved in the shootings are either killed or maimed or arrested. And others just look around and decide like, hey, it's not worth it. A lot of people never been in them type of situations to where they was fighting for

their life in the court system, so they think it's all cool and good. But now a lot of people are coming to a realization, like, man, that's not it. I don't got the money for a lawyer. Just like that. Okay, so it sounds like crime sort of hits rock bottom. What's the third factor? The third factor, the final factor here is money. Money.

Let's talk about Baltimore's rec centers. All the recs getting reopened. Rec centers. Everything getting refurnished, rebuilding and all. Everything getting looking better and stuff like that. Like just simple things like that. They can go a long way. Because if somebody, if you got somebody in a messed up environment, all they see is abandoned

houses, all the recs closed, no activities, what else is there to do outside? You feel me? Yes, the rec centers, the pools, all that stuff reopened after being closed for COVID. But it's not just that. Baltimore City has been spending a ton of money redoing rec centers, redoing pools, redoing other kinds of public infrastructure, and the people they're trying to reach are noticing. But this part has historically been tricky for local governments to tackle because doing

this kind of thing is expensive. Brandon Scott's arrival in the mayor's office in 2020 turned out to be perfect timing. In 2021, Biden signs the American Rescue Plan Act, a COVID stimulus bill that provides hundreds of millions of dollars to Baltimore and most other cities. Baltimore got $40 million for upgrading parks and rec centers. Mayor Scott put $50 million into his gun violence reduction plan right away. The only reason Baltimore has so many Pastor Johns out and about right now is that groups like Rocha got a big cash infusion from

the feds. Come on, come on folks. And it wasn't just Baltimore who got some love from the feds, I assume. No, across the country, local and state government spending on policing and public safety went up by 49% between 2021 and 2024. That one's sort of obvious, but local and state spending on neighborhood social centers went up by 82%. Spending on lighting, which has been proven to help reduce gun violence, went up by 45%. And that's all in addition to the billions of dollars that the Biden administration paid out to Roca and other anti-violence groups during those years. I talked to the criminal analyst Jeff Asher about this. He put it on my radar. He said most of the systemic factors we think of as driving gun violence in America, they did not change in the last couple of years, right? Like the country still swimming with guns, there's still a lot of people in poverty. But local governments all over got a ton of money to try stuff. He called it quote, slop being thrown against the wall. thrown against the wall. But it's also, I think, well-informed slop, if that's a thing.

And it is the thing that I think helps to explain why we're seeing it everywhere and why it has been so significant, because it was a really enormous increase in spending above and beyond what we've ever done before. Miles, I know you're trying to bring us good news, but now I have to ask if this is going to take a turn for the worse because Joe Biden was all about spending that money as we've talked about ad nauseam on this show. But Donald Trump is all about cutting funding for anything in sight, except maybe tax cuts for rich people. Yeah, this is the bombermer part of a feel-good story.

The Trump administration already cut nearly a billion dollars of grants for anti-violence groups back in April. Like in a Doge-style cut, they took money back that they'd already promised. Roca lost a million bucks. They had to eliminate some jobs. It's going to serve 15% fewer kids this year than last. And that's super frustrating to Mayor Scott, who's otherwise kind of having a moment in the Sun It's really sad because you have a a president and administration and party that claims that they want to deal with violent crime, right?

That they care about violent crime in these inner cities The end was they would say democratic-land cities, but then they cut Roca They cut the Center for Hope of people that are out here helping to prevent violence Simply because they don't believe in the methods that that they use If you talk to criminologists if you talk to anti-violence people they're frustrated because You know they can look out onto the horizon and they know that if history is our guide Something is gonna happen that will trigger another uptick in gun violence at some point You know, they can look out onto the horizon and they know that if history is our guide,

something is going to happen that will trigger another uptick in gun violence at some point. And we've got this system right now, this tenuous balance that seems to be working, and there's a decent chance we're just going to throw it all away. So much for good news. Miles Bryan is our senior producer and reporter and our Philadelphia bureau chief. Shout outs to the Northeast Regional. Jolie Myers edited the show today. Laura Bullard fact checked it.

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