Crime in Maryland is prevented by Governor’s Office of Crime Prevention and Policy (GOCPP), the state’s lead agency coordinating public safety strategies. In 2023 there were 150,766 crimes reported in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It borders the states of Virginia to its south, West Virginia to its west, Pennsylvania to its north, and Delaware to its east ...

, including 525 murders.

By location

Baltimore

Baltimore Baltimore is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the 30th-most populous U.S. city. The Baltimore metropolitan area is the 20th-large ...

reported 223

homicide Homicide is an act in which a person causes the death of another person. A homicide requires only a Volition (psychology), volitional act, or an omission, that causes the death of another, and thus a homicide may result from Accident, accidenta ...

s in 2010. The number of all

violent crime A violent crime, violent felony, crime of violence or crime of a violent nature is a crime in which an offender or perpetrator uses or threatens to use harmful Force (law), force upon a victim. This entails both crimes in which the violence, vio ...

s for the city has declined from 21,799 in 1993 to 9,316 in 2010. Even with stark

population decline Population decline, also known as depopulation, is a reduction in a human population size. Throughout history, Earth's total world population, human population has estimates of historical world population, continued to grow but projections sugg ...

taken into account—Baltimore went from 732,968 residents in 1993 to 620,961 in 2010—the drop in violent crime was significant, falling from 3.0 incidents per 100 residents to 1.6 incidents per 100 residents. Baltimore's level of violent crime remains higher than the national average. In 2009, a total of 1,318,398 violent crimes were reported nationwide across the United States, equivalent to a rate of 0.4 incidents per 100 people. In 2011, Baltimore police reported 196 homicides, the lowest number of slayings in the city since a count of 197 homicides in 1978 and far lower than the peak homicide count of 353 slayings in 1993. The drop is significant, but the homicide rate is nevertheless in the same range the city saw in the mid 1980s, when the city had another 130,000 residents. City leaders credit a sustained focus on repeat violent offenders and increased community engagement for the continued drop, reflecting a nationwide decline in crime. The city recorded a total of 344 homicides in 2015, a number second only to the number recorded in 1993 when the population was 100,000 higher. This was the highest murder rate on a per capita basis ever recorded. Preliminary data from the Major Cities Chiefs Association indicates mixed results in

’s largest jurisdictions during the first half of 2024. While violent crime in the nation’s 70 largest jurisdictions fell by 6% overall, Maryland’s four largest jurisdictions—Baltimore City, Baltimore County, Montgomery County, and Prince George’s County—experienced varied trends.

Policing

In 2008, Maryland had 142 state and local law enforcement agencies. Those agencies employed a total of 21,267 staff. Of the total staff, 16,013 were sworn officers (defined as those with general arrest powers).

Police ratio

In 2008, Maryland had 283 police officers per 100,000 residents.

Capital punishment laws

Maryland's former governor,

Martin O'Malley Martin Joseph O'Malley (born January 18, 1963) is an American politician who served as the 17th commissioner of the Social Security Administration from 2023 to 2024. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he was th ...

, signed a bill on May 2, 2013 to repeal the

death penalty Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in s ...

References

{{CrimeUS