In an era when scary headlines warn daily of rising crime, the city of Providence, Rhode Island claims to be experiencing “one of the safest summers in at least a generation,” reports The Providence Journal. Mayor Jorge Elorza said crimes involving a gun have dropped by over 49 percent, in contrast with spiking violence levels in 2020 and 2021. Violent crime overall has decreased 35 percent in last five years. “On the whole, as we look back toward the very tail end of the summer,” Elorza said, “we have what has probably been one of, if not the, safest summers in the city in at least a generation – maybe 40 or 50 years.”
Christopher Herrmann, an assistant professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a former analyst for the New York City Police Department, said the crime decline mostly reflects the degree to which the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021 were outlier years for statistics. But he noted that police deserve some credit for the recent numbers.