Baltimore will end the year with across-the-board declines in crime, continuing a three-year trend of plummeting gun violence in the city.
The declines come amid a strategy shift that has police making tens of thousands fewer arrests — and in spite of a bad economy that many believed would fuel higher crime rates. With Baltimore crime still high compared with other U.S. cities, officials see 2010 as another step forward.
Homicides have fallen about 7 percent to 222, giving the city its lowest number since the late 1980s, just before the crack cocaine epidemic sent crime soaring nationwide.
Nonfatal shootings have fallen nearly 40 percent since 2007, while reported robberies, which police said would be a focus this year, dropped 8 percent compared with a year ago. Crimes involving juvenile victims continued to decline, too.
Baltimore's drop in crime mirrors a nationwide trend. Other cities, including Philadelphia and Los Angeles, have seen larger drops in recent years and some are at four-decade lows. That has kept Baltimore, despite its strides, near the top of lists that rank the violent cities.
U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein said many of those cities had begun their decline years earlier.
"Baltimore was lagging," Rosenstein said. "Crime was dropping across the country, but it stayed high in Baltimore. What you have seen the last few years is tremendous progress. And keep in mind, it takes a lot of effort just to keep it where it is. The second challenge is to drive it down even further. If we stick with this strategy, you'll see continued improvement."