The Michigan State Police released a new statewide crime data visualization tool to the public on Friday, Dec.6. With the new tool, users can see various crime reports for the state. 

This includes murder numbers for the state, which shows that so far in 2024 from Jan. 1 to Sept. 30, 396 murders have been reported to the state. This represents a 15.4% drop compared to the same time period in 2023. Overall murder numbers have trended down since 2020 and are approaching pre-COVID-19 numbers. 

The data also present trends over the last five years. The shows notable drop off in rape reported statewide and robbery.  

In 2019, there were 7,129 rapes reported by the MSP, in 2023, there were 5,673. This represents a 20.4% drop off in reported rapes in the state of Michigan. That trend appears to potentially be continuing in 2024 as from Jan. 1 – Sept. 30, there have been 4,149 reported rape cases to the MSP, a further 10% drop from the same time period in 2023. 

The same can be said for robbery crimes reported by the MSP, in 2019 there were 5,340 reported crimes related to robbery in the state of Michigan. In 2023, that figure dropped to 3,685, representing a 31% drop in reported robberies.  

Where there have been decreases in some crimes over the last five years, there has been a notable increase in aggravated assault and motor vehicle theft. 

In 2019, aggravated assault reports stood at 30,300. The onset of 2020 and COVID-19 saw a 22.3% jump in crimes in the cat. These numbers have slowly come down in the years since but still sit at 35,116 from 2023. This is a 15.9% increase over the course of five years. 

Motor vehicle theft has seen an even more dramatic rise over the last five years, jumping from 18,149 in 2019 to 28,408 in 2023, representing a 56.5% increase in the category over the five years. 2020 to 2021 saw a 14.3% increase while 2021 to 2022 saw a further 23.6% increase in motor vehicle theft. 

This dashboard was created by the Michigan State Police in an effort to present public safety data in accessible and actionable ways. The first dataset to be added to the portal is statewide crime data collected as part of the statutorily required Michigan Incident Crime Report (MICR), which includes data from police agencies across the state. 

“While the MSP has long been responsible for collecting and publishing crime, crash and other public safety statistics, we’re pleased to be able to utilize technology to transform these publications from hundred-page PDF reports to customizable data dashboards,” Col. James F. Grady II, director of the MSP, said in a press release. “The first of these datasets, the Crime in Michigan Dashboard provides users with timely, accurate and actionable crime data, available both in traditional frozen year-end data sets and live data that is updated daily.”