New Orleans has a high violent crime rate. Its homicide rate has consistently ranked in the top five of large cities in the country since the 1980s along with Detroit, Miami, Washington, DC and Atlanta. Homicides peaked at 425 in 1994, for a homicide rate of 86 per 100,000; a homicide rate which has not been matched by any major US city to date.[27] The homicide rate rose and fell year to year throughout the late 1990s, but the overall trend from 1994 to 1999 was a steady reduction in homicides.
From 1999 to 2004, the homicide rate again increased. New Orleans had the highest homicide rate of any major American city in 2002 (53.3 per 100,000 people), and again retained the highest homicide rate in 2003, with 275 homicide according to this report.
Violent crime is a serious problem for New Orleans residents, especially African American, yet far less of a problem for tourists. As in other U.S. cities of comparable size, the incidence of homicide and other violent crimes is highly concentrated in certain low-income city neighborhoods, such as housing projects, that are sites of open air drug trade [5]. The homicide rate for the New Orleans metropolitan statistical area, which includes the suburbs, was 24.4 per 100,000 in 2002.[28]
After Hurricane Katrina, media attention focused on the reduced violent crime rate following the exodus of many New Orleanians. That trend is beginning to reverse itself as more residents return to the city, although calculating the homicide rate remains difficult given that no authoritative source can cite a total population figure.[29] Regardless, statistics are showing that violent crime is beginning to return to the city.
There were 22 homicides in July 2006, the same as the monthly average for the city from 2002 until Hurricane Katrina, when the population was much higher.[30] There were 161 homicides in 2006. [6]
There has been a rise in crime.[citation needed] As of February 12, there were at least 21 homicides in 2007. [7] On Thursday, January 11, 2007, several thousand New Orleans residents marched through city streets and gathered at City Hall for a rally demanding police and city leaders tackle the crime problem. Mayor Ray Nagin said he was "totally and solely focused" on attacking the problem. The city of New Orleans implemented checkpoints starting in early January 2007 from the hours of 2 a.m and 6 a.m. in high crime areas and to date, January 20, 2007, they have netted over 60 arrest and issued more than 100 citations and it is believed that the checkpoints are baby steps into the overall redesign of criminal justice system and getting a better handle on crime. It should be stated that the actual number of homicides in New Orleans has decreased since the bloody year of 1994 when 425 people were slain and New Orleans had the distinction of being the "per capita murder capital of the U.S.", the number of homicides in 2004 were about 275, cutting the 1994 number in half.
