The curious case of the falling murder rate

Toronto, Canada - Toronto's metro is generally considered among the safest in North America, with a combined population of 7 million and a total homicide rate of less than 1 per 100,000 - photo Tamjeed, Pixels

by Gregory Saville

Two years ago, I wrote A Shot in the Dark: Murder Under U.S. Presidents about crime statistics and the curious habit of politicians taking credit when crime falls and blaming someone else when it rises.

This year, as has been the case since the 1990s, the U.S. homicide rate has continued to fall, aside from a blip during Covid. I have been writing about crime rate trends for 15 years. Five years ago, I wrote In the peaks and valleys of crime. And now, having read the latest about declining homicide rates, here we are again. 

This time, before anyone takes credit, and before researchers delve into potential causes like tough laws, crime crackdowns, more security cameras, or goodness knows what, let’s take one extra step! 

Let’s not tune into the ideological bleating about tougher incarceration or the enforcement of illegal immigration. Let’s do a little experiment. Let’s look elsewhere and consider what has been happening to homicide outside the U.S.

San Francisco, California. "The Bay" metro area comprises numerous jurisdictions just under 5 million population. Its combined homicide rate is 3 per 100,000 - three times higher than Toronto.

 

THE EXTRA STEP

Criminologists often use homicide as one of the more reliable measures for comparing crime trends. I have written previously it is not perfect. All official crime statistics are surrogates for a much more complicated reality, and reporting and recording practices differ. But homicide suffers less from the non-reporting problems than other crime statistics.

That makes the North American comparison interesting.

Between 1990 and 2007, homicide rates (the number of homicides per 100,000 people) declined in all three North American countries:

• Mexico: 17.3 → 8.1 = 53% decline
• United States: 9.3 → 5.7 = 39% decline
• Canada: 2.37 → 1.82 = 23% decline

Therefore, by the end of the 1990–2007 period, Mexico's homicide rate was actually below the homicide rate the United States had experienced during its own peaks.

 

Numerous sources were drawn for this chart, including: Canada — Statistics Canada, Homicide Survey, Table 35-10-0068-01; the United States, FBI Uniform Crime Reporting data; The United States, FBI Uniform Crime Reporting data; U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics - Homicide Trends in the United States; the UNODC Intentional-Homicide Series, distributed through the World Bank; and the Mexican historical series data.

Three countries with very different governments, policies, policing systems and social conditions. All experiencing substantial homicide declines during roughly the same period. Most strikingly, Mexico experienced the largest decline of the three! 

I wrote a while back that we should not do what Mexico is doing. This suggests I was wrong!

Mexican military in Michoacan, activated in the War Against Drug Trafficking - photo Diego Fernandez, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

 

THEN THINGS CHANGED

Then Mexico's rate explodes in 2007 from 8.12 to 23.5 in 2011. What happened? 

Beginning in late 2006, the Mexican federal government launched a massive police and military crackdown against the drug cartels. The decades-old cartel ecosystem destabilized, traditional cartels fragmented, rival groups fought over territory, and homicide exploded. In 2015, another crackdown destabilized the situation again.  

 

Mexico City - the capital of Mexico has over 20 million population and the city proper 9 million. The homicide rate in the city proper is 8 per 100,000, over twice that of San Francisco and eight times higher than Toronto - Photo Alcantara, Pixels

The upshot was after declining for almost two decades, Mexico's homicide rate nearly tripled within a few years. This unintended consequence of state action is well documented by numerous sources, including Oscar Contreras Velasco. 

 

MEANWHILE, NORTH OF BORDER... 

All this time, Canada continued its long-term downward trajectory just like the U.S. Except for a blip during Covid, the homicide rate in both countries declined. Now, Canadian and American homicide rates have again fallen dramatically in step with each other. 

This is in spite of the fact that Canada has no U.S-style community violence interrupter programs, growing incarceration rates, nor immigration crackdowns. Yet the homicide rate still declines. In spite of the fact that Canadian police have generally cleared a substantially larger proportion of homicides (70%) than police in the United States (54%), both U.S. and Canadian rates decline.

As for Mexico, note that, after the 2007 – 2017 decade of murder, homicide rates there too are falling as well, just as they were prior to the decade of murder.

Setting aside the 2007-2017 decade of unintended consequences, Mexico, Canada, and the newest U.S. figures simply add another chapter to that same story that has been going on in all three countries for a very long time.

 

With the exception of the Mexican decade of Murder, homicide rates in all three countries had an overall declining pattern - sources in above graph 

 

HOW CAN THIS BE? 

Here is the question this extra step asks: How can three different countries with very different governments, criminal-justice systems and social systems end with the same homicide reduction trend?

Let's be clear: Leaders make decisions that matter and governments implement policies that can help or hurt. Yet when similar declines appear across borders and across governments of very different political stripes, perhaps we should be cautious about congratulating the person standing beside the graph.

Here is a more interesting question: What does the graph itself tell us?

Homicide has been declining for a very long time. The crime decline began in the early 1990s and continued under leaders of all political parties and in different countries. Canada and the U.S. experienced similar long-term declines and in 2025, their homicide rates fell again.

None of this means governments and presidents are irrelevant. Policing, prevention, economics, demographics, and countless other factors matter.

Maybe macro trends within societies over the long periods of time affect crime trends beyond borders, governments and political parties. And maybe those kinds of trends are not found in national crime policies or statistical blips.

Perhaps leaders deserve a little less credit, and criminology deserves a little more curiosity.

Greening the netherworld beneath overpasses

Via Verde greening project, Mexico City - Via Verde Yahoo Mexico news

by Greg Saville

Traditionally, the sheltered areas beneath highway and freeway overpasses are places of dereliction and decline. They are places where garbage gathers and the homeless seek refuge. Especially in car-centric cities, they are a blight foisted on us like an afterthought by traffic engineers. 

Thankfully, planners and citizen advocates are beginning to transform areas beneath overpasses into a green future. Examples include projects such as Seart Park in Mount Wellington, New Zealand, Underpass Park in Toronto and Seattle’s I-5 Colonnade Mountain Bike Park.

A friend sent the above video of an urban naturalization project - the Via Verde project - recently launched in Mexico City; it modifies support columns beneath an elevated motorway using ivy and thousands of plants. 

Via Verde project - greening dead space below overpasses - screenshot from video

Although it's in Spanish, even non-Spanish speakers can see the video is inspiring! The main goal is ecological, namely cutting the air pollution problem from Mexico City’s notorious traffic congestion. The design structure uses recycled bottles, an automated rainwater irrigation system, and many other environmental innovations.

But there are obvious psychological perks worth mentioning from a SafeGrowth perspective.

The vegetative covering on cement pillars not only improves the color and aesthetics of a bland area, but it is just the kind of greenery that reduces the stress and foul moods from traffic madness. It also insulates against a wall of traffic noise, a major fear generator in urban places.

Green walls to humanize Mexico City roadways - screenshot from video 

Then there are the social contributions, for example, parts of the structure were constructed by women penitentiary inmates who were paid for their work. If plants begin to yellow, local residents use social media to notify the city thereby encouraging citizens to claim an interest in underpass areas, further enhancing the natural surveillance.

To date there have been few examples of an environmentally based CPTED - the so-called 3rd Generation CPTED. That is a theory yet to emerge and the green underpass movement may be a perfect place to start.

Culture jamming from Montreal to Mexico City

Montreal or Mexico City? Who can tell?

From the streets of Mexico City to the streets of Montreal. A modern megalopolis sprawling on the plain of an ancient volcano that, a millennia ago, held a population larger than Imperial Rome. A beautiful island city larger than Manhattan and nestled in the St. Lawrence River, re-settled by Samuel de Champlain in 1611 from the original native inhabitants.

There's nothing quite so jarring as culture-jamming from one country to another, the biggest shock being the weather; cool, mild evenings in one, winter's first snow in the other.

One day I watched 1,000 demonstrators protesting working conditions in Mexico City. A few days later I watched 20,000 students protesting tuition hikes in Montreal. They are a world apart in sensibility and logic.

Then there's crime. Both cities have pernicious corruption epidemics, though lately Montreal's mob penetration of the construction industry probably tops Mexico City. Murder rates are similar, slightly higher in Mexico City with over 2 per 100,000 compared to just under 2 in Montreal. Taxis are riskier and poverty much more prevalent in Mexico City. Drivers, in both, are crazy.

In spite of the differences these cities prove that vast differences in demographics and urban form cannot determine, or prevent, success. Both have lively, exciting and safe downtowns, streets teeming with young and attractive fashionistas, cell phones growing from their ears as they bleat Spanish or French versions of "what...ever".

City culture, it seems, can pacify and amuse even the most skeptical observer - me being the perfect example.

Water, not ice. Dead give-away for Mexico City's traffic circles

The enigma that is Mexico City

Mexico City, 3rd largest in the world - photo mlbreports

It's humbling to walk in a city with the population of Australia and a million more than New York City's metro. In North America it is The Giant!

At over 21 million people Mexico City, where I am this week, is by some counts the world's 3rd largest and the most densely populated. It is impossible to define. For lovers of cities, it is irresistible.

Consider this: Insane traffic chaos, easy winner of the Graffiti-City-of-the-Year award, a profusion of public statues of every artistic bent, evocative architecture and buses with women-only safe seats. There are thousands of street vendors clustering around subway entrances and they create lively, unplanned street markets that are both pickpocketing bonanzas and part of Mexico City's financial boom.

Speaking of crime...

Mexico City's architecture is eclectic, stunning, and world-class

Mexico city is considerably safer than cities like Houston, Washington DC and New Orleans. True, there are thugs mugging folks, especially in poorly regulated taxis and in nasty neighborhoods (Note to self: Crime Prevention 101 - Don't get drunk and wander aimlessly at night in nasty neighborhoods!)

However, as elsewhere, staying safe boils down to simple street smarts.

NARCO CRIME?

What about the epidemic narco-violence we hear about? Crime maps show it is clustered elsewhere, like in the north of the country. Maybe Mexico City is a neutral zone? Maybe the pervasive police, security and military help? Or maybe the government is cooking the stat books, just like the NYPD during the Compstat Caper? Difficult to say.

Ironically even the intellectually vapid press lauds Mexico City's success. USA Today and CNN suggest perceptions about crime are worse than the truth.

I don't know the truth. What I do know is this: walking the streets of a few neighborhoods has been safe and fascinating. People are incredibly warm and easy-going.

Youth entertaining CPTED conference delegates

A CPTED CONFERENCE IN MEXICO

I also know there are impressive ground-up, practical crime solutions underway, like CPTED. Last week I attended a conference of the Latin American chapter of the International CPTED Association at Mexico City's IberoAmerican University.

There were 500 delegates from around the world, over 60 different sessions on dozens of new approaches. I saw some remarkable Mexican (and Latin American) creativity for building safer communities.

Then there was the children representing youth programs throughout the country, many whom participated in the conference. My favorite was young musicians who entertained conference delegates. Pretty inspiring stuff.

As for Mexico, I'll be back.