28. Syracuse
The lowest number of murders in Syracuse in ten years happened in 2022, but numbers after that put this city on the list of the US cities with highest homicide rates in 2024. Only 18 people died in Syracuse in 2022. With 32 murders, 2021 was one of the darkest years in city history. This is a huge drop from that year. This year, at least 31 children in Syracuse lost their parents to murder.
The Community Violence Intervention (CVI) plan began as a trial program in 2023. It worked with fifty people who were seen by both the staff of the community gun violence intervention program and the police as the main causes of gun violence in Syracuse. This is about 4% of all the people in Syracuse who are involved with gangs. The Mayor’s Office to Reduce Gun Violence was able to try and improve current methods and bring new national strategies to our community through a pilot program. In 2023, there were four more murders than in 2022, but there is reason to be hopeful when killings happen in small groups.
According to the Syracuse Police Department, the number of killings that hurt or killed people dropped by 36% between 2022 and 2023. The chair of the Syracuse Common Council’s Public Safety Committee, Chol Majok, thinks that actions taken by regular people are beginning to have an effect.
