CLEVELAND — City officials held a press conference Tuesday afternoon to discuss the Cleveland Division of Police mid-year budget report, as well as the measures being taken to prevent crime and violence in the city.
According to the report, numbers from January through June indicate violent crime — including homicide, rape, robbery, and felonious assault — is down compared to the same time period last year. Looking specifically at homicides, there were 70 in January through June of 2022, compared to 86 during at this point in 2021.
"Almost every major category of violent crime is down," Mayor Justin M. Bibb declared.
"We're glad that we're starting to see some results, these results that are trending down," City Council President Blaine Griffin added, "but there's always more work to do."
You can read the full report below:
While violent crime states are down from last year, other crimes — specifically burglary and theft — are up. Looking at data from the first six months of 2022, there were 1,804 cases of burglary, compared to 1,567 in 2021.
Additionally, while homicides in the first half of the year are down in 2022 compared to 2021, the number is nearly double what the city saw in 2012, when there were 36 homicides during the first half of the year.
Looking at full-year totals, there were 169 total homicides in 2021, compared to 179 in 2020. Going back a decade, there were just 76 homicides in Cleveland in 2011.
While city leaders emphasized the progress being made, they also warned of how quickly that trajectory can change.
"One bad day, one bad month, one bad weekend to change that," Police Chief Wayne Drummond said, adding there needs to be a "holistic" approach to stopping crime in Cleveland that can't be "solely" on law enforcement.
"It's getting programs and activities in place well before they reach us in the Cleveland Division of Police," he explained.
Drummond also emphasized the importance of partnerships with other law enforcement agencies — such as the Ohio State Highway Patrol and FBI, among others — in addition to working with programs within the city.
"We intend to always use an all-of-government approach to make sure that everybody in our city feels safe," Bibb said.
Officials noted the importance of community engagement through events such as Hoops After Dark and prevention and intervention efforts.
The city is also focusing efforts on recruiting more police officers. In an interview this month with 3News' Russ Mitchell, Bibb shared that the city is currently down 280 officers, and a marketing firm is now being used to attract more applicants.
"We are trying to attract the next generation of officers, particularly from communities of color that are hardest impacted by violent crime in our city," the mayor said Tuesday. "Rome was not built overnight. We have a long way to go, but this administration, along with city council, is committed to working around the clock to get this right, to ensure that we can attract the best officers to our department moving forward as a city."