Crime has been dropping steadily in Los Angeles for the last ten years. How much?
Well, to use homicides as an example, in 1991 the CITY of Los Angeles, not County, clocked in at 1025 murders.
In 2012? 298.
That's a drop of about 340%.
| Year | Homicides | Year | Homicides |
| 1991 | 1025 | 2002 | 645 |
| 1992 | 1092 | 2003 | 506 |
| 1993 | 1077 | 2004 | 518 |
| 1994 | 850 | 2005 | 490 |
| 1995 | 838 | 2006 | 481 |
| 1996 | 707 | 2007 | 398 |
| 1997 | 566 | 2008 | 388 |
| 1998 | 419 | 2009 | 314 |
| 1999 | 432 | 2010 | 297 |
| 2000 | 548 | 2011 | 298 |
| 2001 | 605 | 2012 | 298 |
And because I just love me some charts, take a look at this Matterhorn-like plunge.
Impressive ain't it?
So impressive, in fact, that the New York Daily News has declared that Los Angles is now the safest big city in America. Who'da thunk?
Now I don't know if that's necessarily true. I haven't looked at numbers from the rest of the nation. And it's not like we're not still pretty jacked up out here. We still have a fuckton of crime.
It's hard to draw comparisons between cities. Compared to, say, New York, L.A. has about a third the number of police (~10K versus ~27K) and half the population. But the geography and policing challenges are different, so it's not apples to apples.
Either way, it's good news. I'd really rather not see the Nineties again.
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