CRIME: Homicides are Plummeting in Philly, and It’s Not Because of Gun Control.

The criminal justice professors say that “resumed court operations, improved violence intervention programs, police recruitment efforts and reduced disability claims” may help to explain why violent crime is plummeting in the city, but add that “new leadership and crime-fighting strategies” are playing a role as well.

Specifically, the academics credit new police commissioner Kevin Bethel’s strategy of focusing on reducing crime in the city’s hardest-hit neighborhoods, which makes sense. Crime in any given community is driven by a relatively small number of prolific offenders, so strategies that target them and the locations where they operate is more likely to both reduce crime and improve relationships between law enforcement and the communities they serve than, say, stopping and frisking tens of thousands of Philadelphia residents in the hopes of discovering someone illegally carrying a gun.

The professors note that Philadelphia isn’t alone in seeing a dramatic decline in the number of homicides. Most cities across the country are seeing fewer murders this year compared to the spike in 2020 and 2021. The researchers once again credit a return to relative normalcy following the COVID pandemic, but they also offer up an intriguing theory that the increase in crime a few years ago led to the demise of some of those prolific offenders I mentioned above.

Policing works. And when that fails, the bad guys getting themselves killed off can work, too.