Pew research study<\/a>, Philly had the largest reductions in homicides in 2023 and 2024. \u201cIn 2021 I think we were [at] 562 homicides,\u201d Bethel told KYW Newsradio, \u201cso we’ve had a 61% reduction over that period of time.\u201d<\/p>\nHe gave detectives a lot of the credit. More than 80% of all homicides were solved in 2025 and about 40% of shootings where people were wounded \u2014 which cuts down on retaliatory gunfire.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt also sends a message across the city that if you engage in gunfire, we’re coming after you, and if we do come after you, there’s a high percentage that we’re going to get you,\u201d Bethel said, who added that the department investigates those non-fatal shootings like homicides.<\/p>\n
The commissioner also credited technology with a large impact on the city\u2019s drop in homicides, including license plate readers, forensics advancements, body cameras, phones and drones.<\/p>\n
Bethel said he applauds services being offered, including people knocking on doors and trying to get those who may pick up guns to make better choices.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday, you have a group violence intervention program that has a plethora of services to offer a young person today who wants to get out of that life,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
However, while the impact of their efforts on the city\u2019s violence has been significant, Bethel acknowledged lives have still been lost. \u201cStill far too many,\u201d he said, \u201cbut we also look at how many lives have been saved by reducing those numbers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) \u2014 Philadelphia\u2019s top cop said 2025 saw the lowest number of homicide victims in nearly…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":484926,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,1448,2830,1311,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-484925","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-pa","10":"tag-pennsylvania","11":"tag-philadelphia","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-united-states-of-america","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484925\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/484926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}