Many types of crime have decreased since the beginning of the pandemic, though homicide is still becoming more common in Chattanooga, a new study from a criminal justice group shows.
The findings, particularly the trends around the pandemic, echo other national crime data reports that include Chattanooga.
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“Regardless of which of these major efforts you’re looking at, we’re seeing the same substantive story,” Alex Piquero, the former director of the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, said during a webinar. “Whether you look at homicide or other kinds of crime types, we are better off now as a nation and in many cities today than we were last year and the year before that and the year before that.”
The study, from the Washington, D.C.-based think tank Council on Criminal Justice, looked at crime statistics from 39 cities, including Chattanooga, between 2018 and the first half of 2024.