CINCINNATI — Mirroring national crime trends, Cincinnati is seeing a drop in overall crime across the city in 2024.
Cincinnati Police Chief Teresa Theetge made the announcement Tuesday during a mid-summer report shared with the Cincinnati City Council.
Compared to this time in 2023, CPD reports the number of shootings has dropped 8%. Cincinnati is also ending July 2024 with two fewer homicides than at this point in July 2023.
The presentation focused on two major crime trend categories:
Violent Crime Trends: Shootings and other violent crimes have decreased since this time last year. Police are still tracking trends and neighborhoods that serve as underlying crime issues (i.e. youth violence, Government Square, Over-the-Rhine).
Property Crime Trends: Numbers are similar to recent, past reports. CPD reports high levels of car theft and "theft from auto" (TFA) in 2024. The rate of stolen firearms is "still concerning."
"We've got to keep our foot on the gas. We've got to keep the reduction going," Theetge said.
Jillian Desmond, crime analyst with CPD, said while officers are seeing a reduction in all crime categories, nipping at deeper trends exacerbating violence is a top priority.
"Even though these citywide trends are all trending exactly how we want them to," Desmond said. "There still can be these contributing trends underneath, whether it geographic or crime type ... That's why we focus on youth violence — because we saw that huge increase."
The previous spike Desmond referenced is depicted in security camera video from early 2024, showing teens attacking individuals in Government Square and Fountain Square.
Desmond reported on Tuesday the number of young shooting victims has decreased 25.7% compared to his time in 2023.
"Last year, we were going into the summer really concerned about the number of youth that were being victimized in our shootings," Desmond said. "This has shown a very dramatic decrease in their involvement."
"As long as we're [seeing] a reduction, that means that the work is paying off, the work that the police officers are doing, the work that some of our partners are doing," Theetge said.
We wanted to meet some of those community partners leading efforts to curb youth violence in our city. That brought us to the Hamilton County Assessment Center.
Tucked inside the Hamilton County Juvenile Court building, the center opened in 2020 with the goal of keeping "...children from becoming entrenched in the juvenile justice system."
"[It's] a program within Hamilton County Juvenile Court that works with youth and families to connect them to services within the community," said Megan Taylor, manager of the assessment center. "So the goal is to work with these families before they hit the court system."
Touted as the court's "first line of intervention" between youth and delinquency, the center worked with 754 kids in 2023, according to an annual report.
"We have to realize that kids do some silly things sometimes, and they get charged for that," Taylor said. "How can we put the right services in place at that time to prevent them from picking up new charges in the future?"
Juvenile court data from 2023 shows 86% of young people the center helped had no official delinquency charge one year after completing recommended services.
"When kids and families come in here, they walk out of here with a plan and some kind of connection to services," Taylor said. "And if we can get kids connected to services, then we see results where behaviors start to diminish."
If you're interested in accessing resources at the Hamilton County Assessment Center, you can reach them at (513) 946-7653, on their website or by visiting the juvenile court building at 264 William Howard Taft Road, Cincinnati, OH 45219.
