By Amar Ahmad
@redlineproject
Every summer, the news comes in like clockwork: Another bloody weekend in Chicago. But what does the data really say, and what does it not say?
Chicago Police Department’s annual report says that there were 573 murders in Chicago in 2024. That is the lowest total since 2019, and it is an 8% drop from the previous year. By 2025, the number dropped to 416, the lowest since 1965.
The number is still shocking, though. Last year, nearly 2,800 people were shot in the city, some fatally and some not. And the violence is not spread evenly. About half of Chicago’s shooting victims historically come from just 10 community areas. Austin, on the city’s West Side, had the most shooting victims, with around 271.
The pattern stays the same: homicides nearly double from January to July, then go down again as temperatures drop. For years, researchers at the University of Chicago Crime Lab have shown that warmer weather leads to more street activity and street conflicts and disputes.
One piece of information that is often missed in national news is that Chicago does not have the highest murder rate in the country. Cities like St. Louis and Baltimore consistently have higher murder rates per capita than Chicago, according to the FBI Crime Data Explorer. Chicago’s rate is 22.3 percent, still high, but not the outlier the political conversation implies.
