Detroit’s reputation for crime has been hard to shake—but the numbers tell a different story in 2024. The city recorded its lowest homicide count since 1965, a milestone that signals more than just progress—it signals a shift.
Across the country, violent crime is trending down, but Detroit’s drop has been faster and deeper than most. And with that, the question “Is Detroit safe?” is no longer met with a shrug or a scoff. The answer isn’t simple, but for the first time in decades, it’s no longer predictable.
Overview of Detroit’s Crime Rate Relative to the National Average
It’s no secret that the Detroit crime rate has long been a talking point—cited in reports, dissected in documentaries, and too often used as a shorthand for decline. As of 2024, the city reports around 66.3 crimes per 1,000 residents, according to data from NeighborhoodScout. That’s nearly triple the national median of 22.0. It’s a big number, yes—but reducing Detroit to a statistic misses the complexity underneath. Numbers can’t capture what it feels like to walk a block that’s been rebuilt or to see a community center buzzing on a weekday evening.
To understand the crime rate in Detroit today, you have to step back and look at the long arc of its history. This is a city that’s weathered industrial collapse, mass disinvestment, and decades of policy failure. A 1 in 15 chance of being a crime victim? Let’s just say that doesn’t materialize overnight. It’s the residue of broken systems and broken trust. But here’s the real headline: the trend is shifting. Violent crime is falling. Homicides are down. And the momentum—while uneven—is real.
Comparisons to the national average only go so far. Let’s be honest: Detroit isn’t “average.” It never has been. Comparing it to a suburban town in Idaho doesn’t tell you much. What matters more is trajectory. And in that regard, the city is rewriting its own story. Slowly, stubbornly—and with the kind of resilience you don’t see in national medians.
Violent Crime in Detroit vs. National Averages
There’s a strange paradox at the heart of Detroit’s violent crime story: the numbers are both encouraging and alarming—depending on where you stop reading. On paper, the city still ranks well above the national average for violent crime. But look closer, and you’ll see something else: the steepest drop in homicides in nearly six decades, and a quiet but profound shift in the rhythm of the city’s streets.
Detroit’s Numbers: A Drop Decades in the Making
In 2024, Detroit recorded 203 homicides—a 19% drop from the previous year and the fewest since 1965. Non-fatal shootings, another painful metric, dropped by 25%, down to 606 incidents. These aren't minor dips; they’re seismic shifts for a city that’s spent years grappling with gun violence. Mayor Mike Duggan called the 2024 data “the strongest indication yet that our strategies are working”—and for once, the numbers back the optimism.
Still, the Detroit violent crime rate stands at about 20.07 per 1,000 residents, according to NeighborhoodScout—and that’s five times the national median of 4.0. In other words: even with progress, the crime rate in Detroit Michigan remains far from average, but that doesn’t mean the city is standing still. Community patrols, trauma response teams, and grassroots interventions are reshaping how safety is imagined—and enforced.
Why the Gap Still Persists
So why is Detroit still so far above the curve? Well, the reasons aren’t mysterious. Decades of systemic neglect—underfunded schools, crumbling infrastructure, high unemployment—don’t evaporate just because the homicide count drops. Violent crime tends to concentrate in neighborhoods where opportunity has been absent for generations. And while policing strategies matter, they’re only one piece of the puzzle.
National averages can be misleading, too. They lump together low-crime towns with high-density urban centers and ignore how uneven violence is across zip codes—even within a single city. The crime rate in Detroit, Michigan is dragged upward by a handful of chronically underserved neighborhoods. Meanwhile, other parts of the city now report violent crime levels comparable to suburban areas.
Property Crime in Detroit vs. National Averages
Property crime doesn’t grab headlines the way violent crime does. It’s quieter, less shocking—but often more pervasive. A stolen car. A broken window. A ransacked garage. These are the everyday violations that shape how safe—or unsafe—people feel in their own neighborhoods. And in Detroit, that feeling has been hard-earned.
A Rate That’s Still High, But Falling Fast
Let’s start with the numbers. As of 2024, Detroit reports a property crime rate of 46.27 per 1,000 residents—more than double the national median of 19.0. That places Detroit well above most U.S. cities when it comes to theft, burglary, and motor vehicle incidents. But here’s what’s often missed: those numbers are falling. According to data reviewed by Sirix Monitoring, property crimes in the city dropped by 15.1% in the first quarter of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023.
Still, there’s no sugarcoating the gap. A resident in Detroit is statistically more likely to deal with a break-in or stolen car than someone in most American cities. And much like with violent crime, that disparity doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s tied to poverty rates, housing insecurity, and neighborhoods left behind by decades of economic disinvestment.
Why the Discrepancy Lingers
So why does Detroit’s property crime rate remain so stubbornly high? For one, opportunity-based crimes—like theft—tend to spike in places where the economic ground is still shaky. Areas with vacant properties, limited surveillance, and high turnover are easier targets. Add in an uneven response from law enforcement (due to under-resourced precincts), and you’ve got a recipe for persistently high numbers.
Then there’s the matter of recovery time. Even as Detroit rebuilds, not all neighborhoods are moving at the same pace. Some have seen new businesses, renovated homes, and better lighting. Others are still waiting. Until that imbalance is addressed more systemically, property crime will remain a stubborn part of the city’s profile—even as the overall trend moves in the right direction.
Trends Over Time
Crime data is often consumed in snapshots—this year’s homicides, last quarter’s robberies, and so on. But if you zoom out a little, the shape of Detroit’s story changes.
Beneath the surface, over the past few years, something important has been happening: the city has been getting safer. Quietly, steadily—almost like the tide going out. You don’t notice it right away, until suddenly, the shoreline looks different.
Homicides: From Crisis to Cautious Hope
Between 2022 and 2024, homicides in Detroit dropped by 33%, according to official data from the City of Detroit. The city closed out 2024 with 203 homicides—the lowest number in nearly six decades. For a place that’s often the poster child in conversations about how dangerous Detroit is, this is a blatant sign of deeper change.
Police and community leaders have credited everything from data-driven enforcement to increased outreach, but the key takeaway is simple: the trend is finally going the right way.
Non-Fatal Shootings: A Steeper Decline
The numbers on non-fatal shootings are even more dramatic. From 2022 to 2024, these incidents were nearly cut in half, dropping to 606 reported cases in 2024. Thus, whole communities are now starting to feel a sense of relief, especially in areas where retaliatory violence used to follow every shooting.
As more residents begin to believe that their streets are turning a corner, the conversation around Detroit safety is slowly beginning to shift.
National Context: Is Detroit Catching Up?
Detroit’s progress isn’t happening in isolation. Violent crime across the U.S. dropped 3% in 2023, according to the FBI. But Detroit’s decline is steeper—suggesting that while the country as a whole is getting safer post-pandemic, Detroit may be doing even more to catch up.
The question isn’t just “Is Detroit safe?” anymore—it’s “Safer than when?” And increasingly, the answer is: safer than it was a year ago, or two, or ten.
Policing in Detroit vs. the Rest of the Nation
Detroit has tried just about everything. From high-tech surveillance to grassroots intervention, the city has cycled through a series of crime-fighting experiments. Project Green Light, perhaps the most visible, launched in 2016 with flashing green lights and live video feeds installed at gas stations, liquor stores, and other late-night businesses.
The idea was simple: more eyes, less crime. Ceasefire, on the other hand, leaned into community trust—bringing together police, clergy, and former gang members to intervene directly with young people caught in cycles of violence.
But when federal researchers finally weighed in, the verdict was sobering. According to evaluations from the National Institute of Justice, both Green Light and Ceasefire had “no effects” on reducing crime. In other words, the massive investments in surveillance and community meetings didn’t move the needle in any measurable way.
That’s not to say they didn’t build goodwill or make certain spaces feel safer—but when it came to raw numbers, the results fell flat. And in a national landscape where cities are constantly looking for “the next big thing” in policing, Detroit’s approach hasn’t always translated into scalable success.
That said, the city may have finally found a model worth replicating. Introduced in 2023, the ShotStoppers program flips the script by placing crime prevention in the hands of neighborhood organizations.
These groups, already embedded in the communities they serve, receive direct funding to design and execute their own anti-violence strategies—everything from conflict mediation to youth programs. And it’s working. In some areas, violent crime has dropped by as much as 83%, according to city officials.
While many cities still double down on police-led enforcement, Detroit’s recent turn toward community-led prevention may be one of its most promising pivots yet.
Detroit Compared to Peer Cities
Detroit doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s often thrown into the same basket as other post-industrial American cities—St. Louis, Cleveland, Chicago, Philly—places that have wrestled with disinvestment, population loss, and long-standing inequality. But if you’re still picturing Detroit as the most dangerous city in America, you’re overdue for an update. The numbers say otherwise. In 2025, Detroit’s murder rate stood at 39.7 per 100,000 residents. There’s no denying that’s high, of course, but it’s not the highest.
Cities like St. Louis (69.4), Baltimore (51.1), and New Orleans (40.6) have all edged ahead of Detroit on the grim leaderboard. Even Cleveland, often seen as a smaller sibling in urban struggle, isn’t far behind at 33.7. Chicago and Philadelphia, while often featured in national crime debates, report significantly lower rates. The story here isn’t that Detroit is suddenly safe—it’s that it’s no longer the outlier it used to be.
2025 Murder Rates (per 100,000 residents)
- St. Louis, MO – 69.4
- Baltimore, MD – 51.1
- New Orleans, LA – 40.6
- Detroit, MI – 39.7
- Cleveland, OH – 33.7
- Chicago, IL – 24.0
- Philadelphia, PA – 20.2
Detroit still has work to do. But when compared to its peers, it’s not leading the crisis—it’s moving, slowly but surely, in the direction of recovery. Maybe not fast enough for some. But in a race most people didn’t choose to run, progress is still progress.
How Dangerous Is Detroit in 2025? The Answer’s Starting to Change
Detroit isn’t done. Far from it. But it’s also not where it used to be—and that distinction matters. In a city long reduced to a headline or a statistic, the story today is quieter and more layered: a drop in homicides that defies decades of precedent, communities stepping into roles once left solely to police, and a slow erosion of the fear that once clung to entire neighborhoods.
The main thing is this: communities that once saw violence as inevitable are now talking about prevention, investment, and even optimism. The rate is still higher than the national average, and property crime hasn’t vanished—but the trend lines are bending in the right direction.
For a city that’s spent too long fighting uphill battles—against poverty, abandonment, and perception—the shift in momentum means that with the right strategies, support, and continued commitment to community-driven change, Detroit’s next chapter could look very different from the ones before.
So, when people still ask, “Is Detroit dangerous?”, the answer isn’t as simple as it used to be. And that change, slow as it is, matters.
