Mayor Jones Releases 'State of Public Safety 2025' Report Highlighting Successes and Continued Crime Reduction Efforts

Today, Mayor Tishaura O. Jones released the "State of Public Safety 2025" report, highlighting the all-hands-on-deck approach that has led to the lowest number of homicides in the City of St. Louis since 2013, a 15% reduction in all crime, and a clearance rate far outpacing the national average.

"This report gives the public a clear understanding of our crime reduction efforts and goes into detail about why they work," said Mayor Tishaura O. Jones. "We will continue to use these methods to reduce crime even further in 2025. This year, we will train and hire more officers, and we will stay laser-focused on our commitment to the residents of St. Louis to improve their safety every day. We will invest and act on what works: prevention, intervention, and enforcement."

Despite the clear improvements to public safety in the City of St. Louis, politicians in Jefferson City will today discuss taking away local control of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department and giving control to politicians who live hours from here. Kansas City, the only police department under state control, has struggled for years to decrease homicides. This report is further evidence that the big-government efforts in favor of state control are purely political and have nothing to do with improving public safety.

The public can view the safety report at this link.

Highlights from the report are below:

• In specific neighborhoods where we are combining outreach from trusted messengers with enforcement and resources, homicides are down more than 50% compared to the year before.
• Through engagement with our youth, we managed to decrease the number of juvenile shooting victims by 6% year-over-year, and 46% compared to 2022.
• Nearly 50% of vehicle thefts this past year may have been prevented if the driver removed the key fob or did not leave the car running.
• In 2024, SLMPD issued a total of 27,002 traffic tickets with 1,972 tickets for red light violations and 3,623 speeding tickets. In partnership with the Missouri State Highway Patrol, SLMPD doubled the number of joint operations in the City to enforce traffic laws.
• In the first few years of the Jones administration, the City increased spending on youth programming by over 200%. We have made sure that our recreation centers are open later and on weekends to keep young people engaged and off the streets. In 2024, 233 young people completed our year-round Youth Jobs program, a paid work experience that offers on-the-job training and wraparound services to get our youth connected to employment.
• The Behavioral Health Bureau, established under Mayor Jones, has trained more than 600 citizens and provided $3.2 million of funding to community organizations working on behavioral health.
• The City has improved from answering just over 50% of calls within the first 10 seconds to over 75% of calls on average.
• 30% of homicides committed in the City of St. Louis have either a victim or suspect from outside the city.