Susan Pendergrass and Patrick Tuohey join Zach Lawhorn to discuss their new report, The Public Safety Climate in the City of St. Louis. They explore what the data actually show about crime trends over the past two decades, how St. Louis compares to similar cities like Cincinnati and Memphis, why crime perception lags so far behind the data, the challenges facing the 911 system and police staffing, why public disorder in high-traffic neighborhoods may be doing as much damage to the city’s reputation as violent crime itself, what it would take to make residents actually feel safer, and more.

Download a copy of the report.

Listen on Spotify

Listen on Apple Podcasts 

Listen on SoundCloud

Episode Transcript

Zach Lawhorn (00:00) Welcome to the Show Me Institute podcast. I’m Zach Lawhorn from Show Me Opportunity, and today I’m joined by Susan Pendergrass and Patrick Tuohey from the Show Me Institute. Today we’re going to be talking about some work that the two of you have done on public safety and crime, specifically in the city of St. Louis. But before we get into the project, I want to talk to you both about your perception of crime as people who have both lived in and frequently visit the city of St. Louis. So Susan, I want to start with you. Before you started this project, before you started looking at the data, when someone said “Is the city of St. Louis dangerous?” what was your perception before you started this project?

Susan Pendergrass (00:38) I only moved to the city of St. Louis in 2015, so there’s a long period of time before I lived there. I was in D.C. for part of that, and my perception before I moved there was that it was dangerous. The Ferguson incident had just happened and I knew that there was a lot of crime. But then when I moved to St. Louis, my husband and I decided to live in the city itself and we loved our neighborhood. It was the coolest with this super cool house built around the time of the World’s Fair. It was amazing. But I never felt really safe. We started leaving our car doors unlocked because our cars would get rifled through. We had a smash-and-grab right within two weeks. I called to report the smash-and-grab and was told that they don’t take reports on them. That was new for me. We had to keep a lot of lights on outside. We didn’t really walk our dogs after dark. I felt like lots of times I would go by police cars sitting on corners idling, but it didn’t necessarily make me feel safer because I wasn’t sure how much they were doing. I also realized people run stoplights, run stop signs, use the right parking lane to pass, and that was all new for me. So I got this feeling that the rule of law wasn’t enforced very well in the city, and that just doesn’t feel good as somebody who has bought a house there and lives there.

Zach Lawhorn (02:06) Patrick, as someone who lives in Kansas City across the state, two questions. What do you think the perception is over there on the western half of the state? And then as someone who comes into St. Louis regularly, what was your perception of the safety situation in the city?

Patrick Tuohey (02:22) A lot of the issues that Susan and I explored in this paper bore out here in Kansas City. I’ve lived in cities my whole life. I understand that every city is going to have the parts you don’t want to go to, the parts that are rougher than others. Kansas City certainly has that. I’ve had my car broken into here in my driveway a number of times, no real damage, and it’s not something I reported to the police. As far as traveling to St. Louis, I’ve been going to St. Louis since the late nineties. Before I lived in Kansas City, I was in Washington, D.C. And I loved St. Louis. I still do. I would visit Creve Coeur, the Central West End, sometimes stay at the Westin downtown. But living in D.C. and growing up in D.C., I understood that every city is going to have the places that you don’t want to go. I understood that St. Louis often gets ranked higher than it should because the city’s footprint is so small. But it never felt to me that what was going on in St. Louis was way outside the normal limits of what we see in U.S. cities. There are those dangerous parts and you generally know not to go there. There is kind of an urban decline, which can be seen in a lack of services, graffiti, uncut grass. But I didn’t navigate St. Louis or think of St. Louis any differently than I thought of Kansas City, Washington D.C., Boston, or any other place I had been.

Zach Lawhorn (04:03) Yeah, and I’m glad you brought up the population of the city, the MSA. It seems like when there are national or even local news stories written on crime statistics in St. Louis, people will point out that if you’re not talking about the larger metropolitan area, you get down to actually a pretty small population number for U.S. cities. So for this work that we’re going to be talking about, can you define what area you guys looked at? When we say murders are a certain number, what area are we specifically talking about?

Patrick Tuohey (04:38) We looked at the city of St. Louis specifically, just those few square miles. We did not look at the metropolitan area and we did not look at the county. It is fair to want to combine all that data into one region, but oftentimes I think people want to do that to mask the seriousness of homicide and violent crime and property crime in the city. And that’s what we wanted to talk about. What is true in St. Louis is not unique to St. Louis. Kansas City has a crime problem that is not reflected in our metropolitan area. That’s true in Washington D.C., Atlanta, Los Angeles, everywhere. So I understand why people who live in St. Louis feel that you can cook the numbers by just looking at the city, but that’s true in every urban environment.

Susan Pendergrass (05:30) We also compared St. Louis to four other cities, and one of them in particular, Cincinnati, ended up being very similar. We wrote a paper and at the back of the paper there’s a table with variables on which we compared them. Similar size, similar poverty, similar median income, very similar. So to say that St. Louis is this very unique outlier and is the only city in the United States that has this situation where, essentially 100-plus years ago, St. Louis was so much better and more metropolitan and forward-thinking than the rest of the state of Missouri, and safer and wealthier, that they drew a line around the city of St. Louis and said we are going to be our own thing and we’re going to have our own police. It was called the Great Divorce. Now that line, the arrows are sort of pointing different ways, where St. Louis County isn’t necessarily excited to absorb the city of St. Louis and its services, systems, police departments, and 911 systems, because it is a uniquely crime-ridden area in parts. So while it would be nice to, as Patrick mentioned, just water down all the numbers by mixing them into a safer pot, it would really mask what’s going on.

Zach Lawhorn (06:47) Susan, you used the word “unique” there to describe the setup. Patrick, does that genuinely make it harder to talk about this topic? In the last few months you’ve had some public events, and we’re going to talk about those in a minute. But as you’ve gone through this process, do you think the unique setup has made it harder? Is there more throat-clearing and definitional work that goes into it?

Patrick Tuohey (07:12) I don’t know that what St. Louis is dealing with is unique. Yes, the city has a particularly small footprint. It is as if you drew a line around just the bad neighborhood in your community and tried to use that small footprint to describe the whole area. I get that argument. But if it’s true by a matter of degree, it’s not uniquely true of St. Louis. And it’s something that the city needs to deal with and understand rather than try to paper over. As Susan said, there are real problems in the city. Their population decline is only exacerbating those problems because there’s less revenue. And frankly, the history of the city going back decades has been that the image of the city is dysfunctional, and not just on public safety, on lots of issues. So although I understand that people say they don’t just want to talk about the city when it comes to crime, St. Louis, while it’s got lots of opportunities and strengths, doesn’t do itself any favors by combining all this stuff and whistling past the graveyard. People in this country know that St. Louis has a crime problem. You don’t solve it by redirecting people.

Zach Lawhorn (08:30) Okay, and let’s talk about that crime problem. Susan, when we use the word “crime” in this context, what are we talking about? Murders? Car break-ins? Lay it out for us.

Susan Pendergrass (08:42) We have violent crime and property crime. Violent crime is murders, aggravated assault, and robbery. Property crimes are larceny and motor vehicle thefts. In our report, we break them all out separately. Murders are the one crime area that the media likes to focus on: how many murders, which city is the murder capital, did we have 150, did we have 200, are they down? They are certainly down in the last two years, to be clear. Murder rates are down. Aggravated assault rates are not down by as much. And sometimes the difference between aggravated assault and murder is how fast the ambulance drives. We still have a lot of violent crimes against people happening. We certainly have a lot of motor vehicle thefts. That’s an area of crime that spiked during COVID, particularly for Kias and Hyundais, and it’s come down, but it’s still a very high number. While it is wonderful that crime has come down across these areas in many cases, the numbers are still pretty high, particularly on a per capita basis, which is how we translate all the crime rates so we can compare them with other cities.

Zach Lawhorn (10:00) So you said crime is down. Is it fair to classify it as it was really bad and now it’s just bad? It was terrible, now it’s just bad. How would you summarize what you found with the drop in crime?

Susan Pendergrass (10:13) Crime’s been dropping since the 80s, so we had much worse crime decades ago. It’s been dropping, it spiked during the pandemic, and it is continuing basically down. Now, when you look at the murder rate per capita in the city of St. Louis, it is still on a slightly upward trend, the number of murders per people, and that could be driven by the fact that Missouri is losing population at a pretty good clip. We have more deaths than births. So on a per capita basis maybe not quite the same, but in terms of actual numbers, crime has been coming down for some time. Crime overall peaked in the late 80s and 90s.

Zach Lawhorn (10:58) Patrick, we talked about your perception and the relevance of many other cities. Did that surprise you, the finding that crime is down? Or was that kind of what you expected?

Patrick Tuohey (11:09) No, the data showing that crime in St. Louis was down wasn’t a surprise. It’s certainly been nice to see that it’s been down year after year. This doesn’t appear to be just a one-off good year. And I’ve known that the mayor and the police chief have been talking about these positive numbers for a while. What I was really interested in with this paper was perception of crime. That’s what I’ve really wrestled with, both at events in the city and in the county. It is a difficult problem to overcome because you can have good numbers like St. Louis has and yet people still rely on that decades-old impression. That’s not something you can address just by waving away the numbers downtown. You have to wrestle with it. You have to admit it, and you have to figure out how do you get people to accept good news, and then how do you make them confident that that good news is going to continue? It’s so easy these days, especially with cities, to just be a pessimist and to say that things are down and won’t ever continue to go down. It is a problem that St. Louis has, but St. Louis isn’t alone in having it. The news on crime is good all over the country, yet perceptions about crime all over the country are still very much with us.

Susan Pendergrass (12:43) There’s a survey question that’s often asked: do you feel safe walking outside alone at night? And those numbers aren’t down. As Patrick mentioned, you have graffiti and trash not being picked up and panhandling and homelessness. Those numbers aren’t necessarily down. But we did look at St. Louis on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis, and it is true that out of 16 neighborhoods, four or five have basically no crime, they’re crime-free. But then there are some other pockets that have most of the murders concentrated in one neighborhood. So it isn’t equal across all the neighborhoods. There are some that have very little crime, but it’s hard to convince folks of that when they drive through the ones that have public disorder and still don’t feel safe.

Zach Lawhorn (13:29) Susan, as a researcher trying to ultimately figure out why things happen, you mentioned that crime is down across the country. Would it be easier if it was just a few select cities, so you could actually go and say what is Boston doing different, what is Memphis doing? Does it make it harder to find the “why” since it seems like it’s kind of across the board?

Susan Pendergrass (13:45) Yeah. There have been other periods of time when crime has gone down and then gone back up again. I personally believe, and this is not based on any research I’ve done, that cameras being absolutely everywhere makes it harder to commit crimes. You cannot basically travel through the world anymore without being on a camera somewhere. Police body cams probably make it harder to commit crimes too. I feel like we’re getting into more of a surveillance state, and maybe that’s what’s bringing crime down. I’ve heard that Detroit has brought crime down faster than other cities, that Pittsburgh is feeling safer, Chattanooga is feeling safer, Memphis feeling less safe. So it would be worthwhile to look into some of these differences. But I don’t think our research has yet pointed to a clear reason why it’s happening.

Patrick Tuohey (14:41) Let me follow up on that because Susan’s exactly right, and I think your question gets to that point. Crime is down nationwide, down in all cities if I remember correctly, and we don’t really know why. And it’s not just Susan and I that don’t know why. Susan has spoken with public safety and crime experts from all over the country, and that’s really frustrating from a public policy research point of view, because you would love to have that outlier, that one city, maybe Boston or Omaha, that tried something novel and got results unlike everybody else. But crime is so difficult because there are so many contributors. Some people want to point to the availability of guns. Some people want to talk about root causes. Some people want to talk about the number of police, the severity of crime, the clearance rate, population growth, new development, basic services like picking up the trash and making sure the streetlights work. And all of those things are right, all those things contribute. So it’s really difficult to figure out which one is driving the change. And sometimes, as Susan pointed out, you may just get a dip and there’s no explaining it. In 2014, in Kansas City, our mayor and police chief at the time came out and had a press conference because they were so proud of the homicide drop the previous year. There was a lot of back-slapping and self-congratulation. Then when the homicide rate went back up the next year, you couldn’t get those guys to answer a basic question. Policymakers are, and maybe rightly so, really shy about claiming credit, because they don’t want to be called to task a year later when the numbers reverse. The good news is that the numbers are trending down, and that’s always good. The frustration is it’s very difficult to figure out why and then make recommendations. We’re all kind of scratching our heads. Although again, this is a good problem to have. The numbers are heading in the right direction and we ought to be happy about that.

Zach Lawhorn (16:58) Patrick, to get a better idea of the perception side, you did the hard work of going to the people. In January and February you moderated events. We had one in the city of St. Louis and one in St. Louis County. There are full recordings of the events available at showmeinstitute.org. You had a panel of experts and spent a lot of time getting feedback from attendees who lived in the city and the county. What were your takeaways? Are they buying that crime is getting better?

Patrick Tuohey (17:33) No, in a word, they don’t. We gave them a short survey before the event. A lot of them believed that crime was important, certainly, but they didn’t necessarily believe that crime was getting better. They weren’t necessarily optimistic that crime was going to be better in St. Louis City in the next five years, and that was certainly true in the county. I wanted to press these audience members: what would it take for you to believe this good news? And I think sometimes they just didn’t want to believe anything. We got the frustrating line: “there are lies, damn lies, and statistics.” That’s a cute thing to say, but it really doesn’t help you explain your own view. If you’re just going to say you believe it’s bad and always going to be bad, that doesn’t get us anywhere. We were happy to have representatives from the Circuit Attorney’s office at both events, and they struggle with this too. They can do a better job. They can prosecute more and different cases, they can do it faster. The police can certainly improve their clearance rate. But public policymakers in those cities, in every city, are going to have to realize that they may have to continue that grind, doing the hard work of lowering crime, and they’re not going to get the attaboys from the people in their city or the communities around them. That’s just a reality. One of the panelists talked about how perception of crime is often a lagging indicator. When crime goes up, people feel it immediately. But when crime goes down, it may take a few years. The tough news for the people who lead St. Louis City is you may have to keep doing this for another 10 years before you get any credit for being successful. And that’s really tough in politics because people want that immediate payoff, that immediate

Susan Pendergrass (19:15) You

Patrick Tuohey (19:31) applause, that immediate press conference and support.

Susan Pendergrass (19:34) Patrick and I have been thinking about the things that could happen that could make a difference, that could maybe make people feel safer. Number one: when you see a crime happening, you need to be able to have faith that you can report it and somebody will respond. And that is not happening right now in the city of St. Louis. We’ve called several times about crimes and nobody showed up. You need to have faith in the 911 system, and the 911 system needs to function. We have about 28 different systems in the county. They’re building a new 911 center in the city that’s going to consolidate services, but it’s not finished. It’s going to be some time before it’s fully functioning. We also need to know that the police will be able to solve these crimes. They need resources. They need to be able to do DNA testing and rape kits and DNA. They need money to do those things. They need detectives. We need to know that these crimes can get solved, and then we need to know that the crimes are prosecuted. I think if these pieces on the front end, not just the “lock them up” approach, but on the front end, people would feel safer if they felt like they could call somebody and somebody would respond and something would happen. I’m not sure that’s happening right now. And until it does, people, especially when they start having small children, are probably going to move out.

Patrick Tuohey (20:59) What we’ve known since at least 1961, when Jane Jacobs wrote The Death and Life of Great American Cities, is that you sometimes just need eyes on the street. Shop owners, pedestrians, people walking around. Cameras can reduce crime, but they’re kind of abstract and tucked in corners. When a street is vibrant, when it’s got people living there, when you’ve got kids playing in the street and families on the porch, there’s that sense of being watched, being seen. But because St. Louis has been in this population spiral, how do you bring people back into the city? The city talks about economic development subsidies all the time, but that’s about bringing in amenities and employers. Maybe what the city needs to do is figure out how to bring in people. And oftentimes it’s the non-crime-related policies, the housing policies, the regulations, the tax structure, that keep people out. Crime is one of those, but the city could open itself up to urban homesteaders who want to come in and rehab these old houses. What has struck me about St. Louis for the decades I’ve been going there is just the absolutely beautiful old neighborhoods, the incredible housing stock. Susan talked about living in a house that was built for the World’s Fair. There are gorgeous neighborhoods in St. Louis, and it’s the barriers to entry, red tape and government regulation, that are keeping people out, I have to believe. Crime is one of them, to be sure. But I am confident there are people who would love to move into those old houses and revitalize those old neighborhoods, because they’re just so gorgeous and so walkable. And it’s been done in other cities. DuPont Circle in Washington D.C. was a slow process of rehabbing neighborhoods block by block, and now 30 years later it is a vibrant community.

Zach Lawhorn (23:03) Susan, you mentioned the 911 system. I know in the report you don’t get into specific solutions, and I know we’re still kind of in the measuring-the-problem stage and trying to figure out next steps, but beyond the 911 system, are there any areas you’d consider low-hanging fruit worth considering moving forward?

Susan Pendergrass (23:25) The legislature passed and the governor signed a violent crime clearance grant program last year that cities like St. Louis could apply for, funding to hire detectives, do DNA testing, collect data, and other activities directly focused on solving crimes. The legislature has not appropriated any money for that program. If they did, St. Louis could apply for those funds. We also have, and I don’t know the exact number as I say this, but at least 100 open police positions in the department. Those are hard to fill. The policies that have been tried, like no longer requiring officers to live within the city and across-the-board raises, none of those have really made a difference. So we need recruitment and retention policies that could actually work. And as I mentioned with the 911 system, triaging calls and making sure the correct agency responds when a crime has been committed. There are community violence intervention programs that have been tried in some places, and using neighborhood-by-neighborhood data to focus in on where crimes are really happening. Those are all things we’d like to explore further: what is the cost of these programs, what is the likelihood that they’ll improve things, and what are some feasible ways to get them done.

Zach Lawhorn (24:54) So there’s the PR part of it. The city’s got a PR problem. There’s the need for more cops. We need people to be able to call 911. We need people to actually be prosecuted for crimes. That all seems doable.

Susan Pendergrass (24:58) Yeah.

Zach Lawhorn (25:06) Where do you think the city of St. Louis is at right now? Are we in a good place? Are we in just an improved place where it could still be a few years? How are you feeling about public safety in the city of St. Louis right now?

Susan Pendergrass (25:21) I don’t want to be a wet blanket. I love the city of St. Louis and I want it to succeed wildly. But I’m concerned that they’re going to say murders are down and these other crimes are down, but people are still running stop signs and stoplights, there are still panhandlers, and trash still isn’t being picked up. They’re not really fixing the small things that make people feel safe. They’re sort of focused on these big numbers. It could be like a school improving ACT scores. You have to be really careful if you’re just focusing on one aspect, because these big crime numbers being down could be hiding a lot of other stuff that really needs to be done and focused on. So I’m cautiously optimistic, I guess.

Patrick Tuohey (26:05) I’m optimistic because crime is going down everywhere, and I think it will probably continue to go down at least for the next few years, for reasons that may have nothing to do with the management of St. Louis. Part of it is because Susan and I have been reviewing the research for the last few months, and there is so much out there, primary research on crime and secondary, that talks about exactly the things Susan hit upon: the environment, picking up trash, cleaning up graffiti, fixing sidewalks, making sure the streetlights are lit. We know so much more about what drives crime, or at least what can ameliorate it, that even if we don’t know the specifics of what’s going on now, city leaders and state leaders are much more aware of what they can do to make communities not just safer but feel safe. And again, it is frustrating because you can say the numbers are down, but until people feel safe and want to go downtown and take advantage of what the city has to offer, we’re not going to see that public perception change. So yes, I think the public perception is accurate in as much as that is what people feel, but I don’t think it reflects what’s actually going on in St. Louis or in the county.

Zach Lawhorn (27:20) And we will leave it there. The report, The Public Safety Climate in the City of St. Louis, is available at showmeinstitute.org. If you want to watch the full recordings of the events that Patrick moderated, those are available right now at showmeinstitute.org. Susan, Patrick, thank you very much.

Susan Pendergrass (27:36) Thank you.

Patrick Tuohey (27:36) Thank you.

Produced by Show-Me Opportunity

The post The Public Safety Climate in the City of St. Louis with Susan Pendergrass and Patrick Tuohey appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

While 2025 was a record-breaking year for the St. Louis as homicides fell to new lows and overall crime dropped by 16 percent. However, there remains a persistent gap between reported data and public perception. Even as the major numbers like homicides and carjackings decline, other issues keep the public on edge. Offenses such as aggravated assaults and vehicle thefts remain high, reminding residents that the threat of violence and serious property crime is still present. Finally, visible signs of disorder like graffiti and aggressive panhandling reinforce the feeling that the city is not yet fully under control.

As this report makes clear, there is more work to be done before St. Louisans and visitors to the city will feel safe walking alone at night. But some potential policy solutions have emerged from this analysis, and we look forward to continuing the conversation.

Click here to read the full report

Key Takeaways from the Report

• Most types of crime in St. Louis have declined consistently over the past 20 years. The major exceptions are homicide, which has declined from its COVID spike in 2021 but remains on a slightly upward trajectory on a per-capita basis, and motor vehicle theft, which spiked substantially in 2020.
• Although St. Louis once had considerably higher per-capita rates of aggravated assault, larceny, burglary, and robbery than Kansas City or Springfield, the three cities — the largest three cities in Missouri — are now quite similar.
• When compared to similar U.S. cities (Louisville, Cincinnati, Memphis, and Mobile), St. Louis’s crime rates (with the exception of homicide and motor vehicle theft) follow similar trends. The one exception is Memphis, which has become more dangerous than St. Louis in recent years.
• Since 2021, St. Louis has improved its clearance rates for homicide, aggravated assault, robbery, and burglary. Clearance rates for homicide have been as high as 70 percent in recent years.
• Motor vehicle thefts largely go unsolved in St. Louis; over the last 10 years, just one out of 10 has been cleared annually.
• Estimates of the number of Missourians who were victims of crime, compared to reported crimes, suggest that as many as 50 percent of violent crimes and 65 percent of property crimes in the state may go unreported. So, although the number of reported crimes has declined in recent years, total crimes committed may not have.
• Although it happened over a decade ago, the shooting of Michael Brown and the subsequent “Ferguson Effect” have had an impact on the relationship between St. Louis police officers and the community. A lack of trust in the police force may still be contributing to crimes going unreported.
• The St. Louis 911 system has been plagued by staffing shortages and other challenges that have left response times below national targets. Construction of a new 911 center is underway, but it has been delayed.
• Media sensationalism around violent crime, and homicides in particular, in St. Louis led to distorted perceptions regarding public safety (or the lack thereof) in the city.
• While violent crimes, including homicides, are concentrated in a few of the poorest neighborhoods in St. Louis, crimes of public disorder, such as vandalism, vagrancy, trash in the street, and aggressive panhandling are concentrated in the downtown and Central West End neighborhoods, where visitors are more likely to spend time. This may contribute to St. Louis’s reputation as a dangerous city to visit.

Watch Full Recordings of the Public Events

The Public Safety Climate in the City of St Louis –  January 21, 2026:

The Public Safety Climate in the City of St Louis – February 10, 2026:

Listen to the Podcast

More Ways to Listen:

Listen on Spotify

Listen on Apple Podcasts 

Listen on SoundCloud

Episode Transcript

Zach Lawhorn (00:00) Welcome to the Show Me Institute podcast. I’m Zach Lawhorn from Show Me Opportunity, and today I’m joined by Susan Pendergrass and Patrick Tuohey from the Show Me Institute. Today we’re going to be talking about some work that the two of you have done on public safety and crime, specifically in the city of St. Louis. But before we get into the project, I want to talk to you both about your perception of crime as people who have both lived in and frequently visit the city of St. Louis. So Susan, I want to start with you. Before you started this project, before you started looking at the data, when someone said “Is the city of St. Louis dangerous?” what was your perception before you started this project?

Susan Pendergrass (00:38) I only moved to the city of St. Louis in 2015, so there’s a long period of time before I lived there. I was in D.C. for part of that, and my perception before I moved there was that it was dangerous. The Ferguson incident had just happened and I knew that there was a lot of crime. But then when I moved to St. Louis, my husband and I decided to live in the city itself and we loved our neighborhood. It was the coolest with this super cool house built around the time of the World’s Fair. It was amazing. But I never felt really safe. We started leaving our car doors unlocked because our cars would get rifled through. We had a smash-and-grab right within two weeks. I called to report the smash-and-grab and was told that they don’t take reports on them. That was new for me. We had to keep a lot of lights on outside. We didn’t really walk our dogs after dark. I felt like lots of times I would go by police cars sitting on corners idling, but it didn’t necessarily make me feel safer because I wasn’t sure how much they were doing. I also realized people run stoplights, run stop signs, use the right parking lane to pass, and that was all new for me. So I got this feeling that the rule of law wasn’t enforced very well in the city, and that just doesn’t feel good as somebody who has bought a house there and lives there.

Zach Lawhorn (02:06) Patrick, as someone who lives in Kansas City across the state, two questions. What do you think the perception is over there on the western half of the state? And then as someone who comes into St. Louis regularly, what was your perception of the safety situation in the city?

Patrick Tuohey (02:22) A lot of the issues that Susan and I explored in this paper bore out here in Kansas City. I’ve lived in cities my whole life. I understand that every city is going to have the parts you don’t want to go to, the parts that are rougher than others. Kansas City certainly has that. I’ve had my car broken into here in my driveway a number of times, no real damage, and it’s not something I reported to the police. As far as traveling to St. Louis, I’ve been going to St. Louis since the late nineties. Before I lived in Kansas City, I was in Washington, D.C. And I loved St. Louis. I still do. I would visit Creve Coeur, the Central West End, sometimes stay at the Westin downtown. But living in D.C. and growing up in D.C., I understood that every city is going to have the places that you don’t want to go. I understood that St. Louis often gets ranked higher than it should because the city’s footprint is so small. But it never felt to me that what was going on in St. Louis was way outside the normal limits of what we see in U.S. cities. There are those dangerous parts and you generally know not to go there. There is kind of an urban decline, which can be seen in a lack of services, graffiti, uncut grass. But I didn’t navigate St. Louis or think of St. Louis any differently than I thought of Kansas City, Washington D.C., Boston, or any other place I had been.

Zach Lawhorn (04:03) Yeah, and I’m glad you brought up the population of the city, the MSA. It seems like when there are national or even local news stories written on crime statistics in St. Louis, people will point out that if you’re not talking about the larger metropolitan area, you get down to actually a pretty small population number for U.S. cities. So for this work that we’re going to be talking about, can you define what area you guys looked at? When we say murders are a certain number, what area are we specifically talking about?

Patrick Tuohey (04:38) We looked at the city of St. Louis specifically, just those few square miles. We did not look at the metropolitan area and we did not look at the county. It is fair to want to combine all that data into one region, but oftentimes I think people want to do that to mask the seriousness of homicide and violent crime and property crime in the city. And that’s what we wanted to talk about. What is true in St. Louis is not unique to St. Louis. Kansas City has a crime problem that is not reflected in our metropolitan area. That’s true in Washington D.C., Atlanta, Los Angeles, everywhere. So I understand why people who live in St. Louis feel that you can cook the numbers by just looking at the city, but that’s true in every urban environment.

Susan Pendergrass (05:30) We also compared St. Louis to four other cities, and one of them in particular, Cincinnati, ended up being very similar. We wrote a paper and at the back of the paper there’s a table with variables on which we compared them. Similar size, similar poverty, similar median income, very similar. So to say that St. Louis is this very unique outlier and is the only city in the United States that has this situation where, essentially 100-plus years ago, St. Louis was so much better and more metropolitan and forward-thinking than the rest of the state of Missouri, and safer and wealthier, that they drew a line around the city of St. Louis and said we are going to be our own thing and we’re going to have our own police. It was called the Great Divorce. Now that line, the arrows are sort of pointing different ways, where St. Louis County isn’t necessarily excited to absorb the city of St. Louis and its services, systems, police departments, and 911 systems, because it is a uniquely crime-ridden area in parts. So while it would be nice to, as Patrick mentioned, just water down all the numbers by mixing them into a safer pot, it would really mask what’s going on.

Zach Lawhorn (06:47) Susan, you used the word “unique” there to describe the setup. Patrick, does that genuinely make it harder to talk about this topic? In the last few months you’ve had some public events, and we’re going to talk about those in a minute. But as you’ve gone through this process, do you think the unique setup has made it harder? Is there more throat-clearing and definitional work that goes into it?

Patrick Tuohey (07:12) I don’t know that what St. Louis is dealing with is unique. Yes, the city has a particularly small footprint. It is as if you drew a line around just the bad neighborhood in your community and tried to use that small footprint to describe the whole area. I get that argument. But if it’s true by a matter of degree, it’s not uniquely true of St. Louis. And it’s something that the city needs to deal with and understand rather than try to paper over. As Susan said, there are real problems in the city. Their population decline is only exacerbating those problems because there’s less revenue. And frankly, the history of the city going back decades has been that the image of the city is dysfunctional, and not just on public safety, on lots of issues. So although I understand that people say they don’t just want to talk about the city when it comes to crime, St. Louis, while it’s got lots of opportunities and strengths, doesn’t do itself any favors by combining all this stuff and whistling past the graveyard. People in this country know that St. Louis has a crime problem. You don’t solve it by redirecting people.

Zach Lawhorn (08:30) Okay, and let’s talk about that crime problem. Susan, when we use the word “crime” in this context, what are we talking about? Murders? Car break-ins? Lay it out for us.

Susan Pendergrass (08:42) We have violent crime and property crime. Violent crime is murders, aggravated assault, and robbery. Property crimes are larceny and motor vehicle thefts. In our report, we break them all out separately. Murders are the one crime area that the media likes to focus on: how many murders, which city is the murder capital, did we have 150, did we have 200, are they down? They are certainly down in the last two years, to be clear. Murder rates are down. Aggravated assault rates are not down by as much. And sometimes the difference between aggravated assault and murder is how fast the ambulance drives. We still have a lot of violent crimes against people happening. We certainly have a lot of motor vehicle thefts. That’s an area of crime that spiked during COVID, particularly for Kias and Hyundais, and it’s come down, but it’s still a very high number. While it is wonderful that crime has come down across these areas in many cases, the numbers are still pretty high, particularly on a per capita basis, which is how we translate all the crime rates so we can compare them with other cities.

Zach Lawhorn (10:00) So you said crime is down. Is it fair to classify it as it was really bad and now it’s just bad? It was terrible, now it’s just bad. How would you summarize what you found with the drop in crime?

Susan Pendergrass (10:13) Crime’s been dropping since the 80s, so we had much worse crime decades ago. It’s been dropping, it spiked during the pandemic, and it is continuing basically down. Now, when you look at the murder rate per capita in the city of St. Louis, it is still on a slightly upward trend, the number of murders per people, and that could be driven by the fact that Missouri is losing population at a pretty good clip. We have more deaths than births. So on a per capita basis maybe not quite the same, but in terms of actual numbers, crime has been coming down for some time. Crime overall peaked in the late 80s and 90s.

Zach Lawhorn (10:58) Patrick, we talked about your perception and the relevance of many other cities. Did that surprise you, the finding that crime is down? Or was that kind of what you expected?

Patrick Tuohey (11:09) No, the data showing that crime in St. Louis was down wasn’t a surprise. It’s certainly been nice to see that it’s been down year after year. This doesn’t appear to be just a one-off good year. And I’ve known that the mayor and the police chief have been talking about these positive numbers for a while. What I was really interested in with this paper was perception of crime. That’s what I’ve really wrestled with, both at events in the city and in the county. It is a difficult problem to overcome because you can have good numbers like St. Louis has and yet people still rely on that decades-old impression. That’s not something you can address just by waving away the numbers downtown. You have to wrestle with it. You have to admit it, and you have to figure out how do you get people to accept good news, and then how do you make them confident that that good news is going to continue? It’s so easy these days, especially with cities, to just be a pessimist and to say that things are down and won’t ever continue to go down. It is a problem that St. Louis has, but St. Louis isn’t alone in having it. The news on crime is good all over the country, yet perceptions about crime all over the country are still very much with us.

Susan Pendergrass (12:43) There’s a survey question that’s often asked: do you feel safe walking outside alone at night? And those numbers aren’t down. As Patrick mentioned, you have graffiti and trash not being picked up and panhandling and homelessness. Those numbers aren’t necessarily down. But we did look at St. Louis on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis, and it is true that out of 16 neighborhoods, four or five have basically no crime, they’re crime-free. But then there are some other pockets that have most of the murders concentrated in one neighborhood. So it isn’t equal across all the neighborhoods. There are some that have very little crime, but it’s hard to convince folks of that when they drive through the ones that have public disorder and still don’t feel safe.

Zach Lawhorn (13:29) Susan, as a researcher trying to ultimately figure out why things happen, you mentioned that crime is down across the country. Would it be easier if it was just a few select cities, so you could actually go and say what is Boston doing different, what is Memphis doing? Does it make it harder to find the “why” since it seems like it’s kind of across the board?

Susan Pendergrass (13:45) Yeah. There have been other periods of time when crime has gone down and then gone back up again. I personally believe, and this is not based on any research I’ve done, that cameras being absolutely everywhere makes it harder to commit crimes. You cannot basically travel through the world anymore without being on a camera somewhere. Police body cams probably make it harder to commit crimes too. I feel like we’re getting into more of a surveillance state, and maybe that’s what’s bringing crime down. I’ve heard that Detroit has brought crime down faster than other cities, that Pittsburgh is feeling safer, Chattanooga is feeling safer, Memphis feeling less safe. So it would be worthwhile to look into some of these differences. But I don’t think our research has yet pointed to a clear reason why it’s happening.

Patrick Tuohey (14:41) Let me follow up on that because Susan’s exactly right, and I think your question gets to that point. Crime is down nationwide, down in all cities if I remember correctly, and we don’t really know why. And it’s not just Susan and I that don’t know why. Susan has spoken with public safety and crime experts from all over the country, and that’s really frustrating from a public policy research point of view, because you would love to have that outlier, that one city, maybe Boston or Omaha, that tried something novel and got results unlike everybody else. But crime is so difficult because there are so many contributors. Some people want to point to the availability of guns. Some people want to talk about root causes. Some people want to talk about the number of police, the severity of crime, the clearance rate, population growth, new development, basic services like picking up the trash and making sure the streetlights work. And all of those things are right, all those things contribute. So it’s really difficult to figure out which one is driving the change. And sometimes, as Susan pointed out, you may just get a dip and there’s no explaining it. In 2014, in Kansas City, our mayor and police chief at the time came out and had a press conference because they were so proud of the homicide drop the previous year. There was a lot of back-slapping and self-congratulation. Then when the homicide rate went back up the next year, you couldn’t get those guys to answer a basic question. Policymakers are, and maybe rightly so, really shy about claiming credit, because they don’t want to be called to task a year later when the numbers reverse. The good news is that the numbers are trending down, and that’s always good. The frustration is it’s very difficult to figure out why and then make recommendations. We’re all kind of scratching our heads. Although again, this is a good problem to have. The numbers are heading in the right direction and we ought to be happy about that.

Zach Lawhorn (16:58) Patrick, to get a better idea of the perception side, you did the hard work of going to the people. In January and February you moderated events. We had one in the city of St. Louis and one in St. Louis County. There are full recordings of the events available at showmeinstitute.org. You had a panel of experts and spent a lot of time getting feedback from attendees who lived in the city and the county. What were your takeaways? Are they buying that crime is getting better?

Patrick Tuohey (17:33) No, in a word, they don’t. We gave them a short survey before the event. A lot of them believed that crime was important, certainly, but they didn’t necessarily believe that crime was getting better. They weren’t necessarily optimistic that crime was going to be better in St. Louis City in the next five years, and that was certainly true in the county. I wanted to press these audience members: what would it take for you to believe this good news? And I think sometimes they just didn’t want to believe anything. We got the frustrating line: “there are lies, damn lies, and statistics.” That’s a cute thing to say, but it really doesn’t help you explain your own view. If you’re just going to say you believe it’s bad and always going to be bad, that doesn’t get us anywhere. We were happy to have representatives from the Circuit Attorney’s office at both events, and they struggle with this too. They can do a better job. They can prosecute more and different cases, they can do it faster. The police can certainly improve their clearance rate. But public policymakers in those cities, in every city, are going to have to realize that they may have to continue that grind, doing the hard work of lowering crime, and they’re not going to get the attaboys from the people in their city or the communities around them. That’s just a reality. One of the panelists talked about how perception of crime is often a lagging indicator. When crime goes up, people feel it immediately. But when crime goes down, it may take a few years. The tough news for the people who lead St. Louis City is you may have to keep doing this for another 10 years before you get any credit for being successful. And that’s really tough in politics because people want that immediate payoff, that immediate

Susan Pendergrass (19:15) You

Patrick Tuohey (19:31) applause, that immediate press conference and support.

Susan Pendergrass (19:34) Patrick and I have been thinking about the things that could happen that could make a difference, that could maybe make people feel safer. Number one: when you see a crime happening, you need to be able to have faith that you can report it and somebody will respond. And that is not happening right now in the city of St. Louis. We’ve called several times about crimes and nobody showed up. You need to have faith in the 911 system, and the 911 system needs to function. We have about 28 different systems in the county. They’re building a new 911 center in the city that’s going to consolidate services, but it’s not finished. It’s going to be some time before it’s fully functioning. We also need to know that the police will be able to solve these crimes. They need resources. They need to be able to do DNA testing and rape kits and DNA. They need money to do those things. They need detectives. We need to know that these crimes can get solved, and then we need to know that the crimes are prosecuted. I think if these pieces on the front end, not just the “lock them up” approach, but on the front end, people would feel safer if they felt like they could call somebody and somebody would respond and something would happen. I’m not sure that’s happening right now. And until it does, people, especially when they start having small children, are probably going to move out.

Patrick Tuohey (20:59) What we’ve known since at least 1961, when Jane Jacobs wrote The Death and Life of Great American Cities, is that you sometimes just need eyes on the street. Shop owners, pedestrians, people walking around. Cameras can reduce crime, but they’re kind of abstract and tucked in corners. When a street is vibrant, when it’s got people living there, when you’ve got kids playing in the street and families on the porch, there’s that sense of being watched, being seen. But because St. Louis has been in this population spiral, how do you bring people back into the city? The city talks about economic development subsidies all the time, but that’s about bringing in amenities and employers. Maybe what the city needs to do is figure out how to bring in people. And oftentimes it’s the non-crime-related policies, the housing policies, the regulations, the tax structure, that keep people out. Crime is one of those, but the city could open itself up to urban homesteaders who want to come in and rehab these old houses. What has struck me about St. Louis for the decades I’ve been going there is just the absolutely beautiful old neighborhoods, the incredible housing stock. Susan talked about living in a house that was built for the World’s Fair. There are gorgeous neighborhoods in St. Louis, and it’s the barriers to entry, red tape and government regulation, that are keeping people out, I have to believe. Crime is one of them, to be sure. But I am confident there are people who would love to move into those old houses and revitalize those old neighborhoods, because they’re just so gorgeous and so walkable. And it’s been done in other cities. DuPont Circle in Washington D.C. was a slow process of rehabbing neighborhoods block by block, and now 30 years later it is a vibrant community.

Zach Lawhorn (23:03) Susan, you mentioned the 911 system. I know in the report you don’t get into specific solutions, and I know we’re still kind of in the measuring-the-problem stage and trying to figure out next steps, but beyond the 911 system, are there any areas you’d consider low-hanging fruit worth considering moving forward?

Susan Pendergrass (23:25) The legislature passed and the governor signed a violent crime clearance grant program last year that cities like St. Louis could apply for, funding to hire detectives, do DNA testing, collect data, and other activities directly focused on solving crimes. The legislature has not appropriated any money for that program. If they did, St. Louis could apply for those funds. We also have, and I don’t know the exact number as I say this, but at least 100 open police positions in the department. Those are hard to fill. The policies that have been tried, like no longer requiring officers to live within the city and across-the-board raises, none of those have really made a difference. So we need recruitment and retention policies that could actually work. And as I mentioned with the 911 system, triaging calls and making sure the correct agency responds when a crime has been committed. There are community violence intervention programs that have been tried in some places, and using neighborhood-by-neighborhood data to focus in on where crimes are really happening. Those are all things we’d like to explore further: what is the cost of these programs, what is the likelihood that they’ll improve things, and what are some feasible ways to get them done.

Zach Lawhorn (24:54) So there’s the PR part of it. The city’s got a PR problem. There’s the need for more cops. We need people to be able to call 911. We need people to actually be prosecuted for crimes. That all seems doable.

Susan Pendergrass (24:58) Yeah.

Zach Lawhorn (25:06) Where do you think the city of St. Louis is at right now? Are we in a good place? Are we in just an improved place where it could still be a few years? How are you feeling about public safety in the city of St. Louis right now?

Susan Pendergrass (25:21) I don’t want to be a wet blanket. I love the city of St. Louis and I want it to succeed wildly. But I’m concerned that they’re going to say murders are down and these other crimes are down, but people are still running stop signs and stoplights, there are still panhandlers, and trash still isn’t being picked up. They’re not really fixing the small things that make people feel safe. They’re sort of focused on these big numbers. It could be like a school improving ACT scores. You have to be really careful if you’re just focusing on one aspect, because these big crime numbers being down could be hiding a lot of other stuff that really needs to be done and focused on. So I’m cautiously optimistic, I guess.

Patrick Tuohey (26:05) I’m optimistic because crime is going down everywhere, and I think it will probably continue to go down at least for the next few years, for reasons that may have nothing to do with the management of St. Louis. Part of it is because Susan and I have been reviewing the research for the last few months, and there is so much out there, primary research on crime and secondary, that talks about exactly the things Susan hit upon: the environment, picking up trash, cleaning up graffiti, fixing sidewalks, making sure the streetlights are lit. We know so much more about what drives crime, or at least what can ameliorate it, that even if we don’t know the specifics of what’s going on now, city leaders and state leaders are much more aware of what they can do to make communities not just safer but feel safe. And again, it is frustrating because you can say the numbers are down, but until people feel safe and want to go downtown and take advantage of what the city has to offer, we’re not going to see that public perception change. So yes, I think the public perception is accurate in as much as that is what people feel, but I don’t think it reflects what’s actually going on in St. Louis or in the county.

Zach Lawhorn (27:20) And we will leave it there. The report, The Public Safety Climate in the City of St. Louis, is available at showmeinstitute.org. If you want to watch the full recordings of the events that Patrick moderated, those are available right now at showmeinstitute.org. Susan, Patrick, thank you very much.

Susan Pendergrass (27:36) Thank you.

Patrick Tuohey (27:36) Thank you.

The post The Public Safety Climate in the City of St. Louis appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

On January 21, 2026, the Show-Me Institute hosted an in-depth discussion on crime and public safety trends in the City of St. Louis at the Knight Center at Washington University. Patrick Tuohey, Senior Fellow at the Show-Me Institute, was joined by local experts Gabe Gore, St. Louis Circuit Attorney; Janet Lauritsen, Curators’ Distinguished Professor Emerita in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Missouri–St. Louis; and Pernell Witherspoon, Senior Professor of Criminal Justice at Lindenwood University.

Produced by Show-Me Opportunity

The post Watch: The Public Safety Climate in the City of St Louis appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The piece focused on five cities: Baltimore, Philadelphia, Chicago, Indianapolis, and Los Angeles, and detailed each city’s experience of homicides.

But what is noteworthy for Kansas Citians is that, based on the Post’s reporting of “crime data from 52 of the country’s largest police departments,” it appears that Kansas City may have the highest homicide rate for 2025—notwithstanding a reduction from previous years.

The homicide rate indicates homicides per 100,000 population; it is a useful tool for comparing cities with different total populations. While Kansas City’s total homicides in 2025 will likely be lower from the peak of 182 in 2023, when adjusted for population, it appears we may be on top. (St. Louis will likely have an even higher rate, but was not included in the Post’s analysis due to its size.)

This should serve as a reminder to all Missourians that it is not enough to reduce crime, though that is welcome. We must adopt policies that demonstrate results year over year rather than congratulate ourselves for drops that may have nothing to do with public policy. And if Kansas City does indeed end 2025 with the highest homicide rate in the country (out of the 52 cities selected for the study), it’s a reminder that public safety—and specifically homicide—must become a greater concern.

The post Kansas City Homicide Rate May Be National Leader for 2025 appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

St. Louis has a reputation for being a violent city. Crime issues have helped push people out in droves and deterred newcomers from settling in the area. St. Louis City’s population has decreased by over 30% since the 1980s, and the number of vacant downtown buildings has increased substantially. The Wall Street Journal went as far as to call downtown a “real estate nightmare.”

Although St. Louis continues to rank among the most dangerous cities in the country, efforts have been made to solve the ongoing crime problem, beginning with the replacement of former St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner in 2023. Gardner exacerbated the crime issue in several ways, including having an exclusion list of police officers who were not allowed to bring cases to her office and creating a massive backlog of more than 6,700 cases that awaited charging decisions. The current St. Louis Circuit Attorney, Gabe Gore, has since cleared all cases in the backlog.

More recent efforts include House Bill (HB) 495, signed by Governor Mike Kehoe into law in March. This legislation transfers control of the St. Louis Police Department to a state-appointed board. The governor has already made five interim appointments to the six-person board (the mayor is the sixth member of the board). In addition, a $45 million 911 dispatch center broke ground last year in St. Louis with the goal of improving response times. In St. Louis, only half of the 911 calls in 2022 were answered within the national standard of 10 seconds.

It is unclear whether these efforts will have positive impacts on public safety in St. Louis, but what is clear is that violent crime in the city is down. It was down 7.8% in 2024 compared to 2023. The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department (SLMPD) reported homicides were down 6.3 % in 2024. It is worth noting that crime is down across the country, so this may be part of a larger trend.

The fact that St. Louis has lower violent crime and homicide rates is a positive sign, but time will tell if the city can sustain this success and lose the moniker of being one of the nation’s most dangerous cities.

The post St. Louis’s Improving Crime Data appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

How bad is crime in Kansas City? If you believe recent international headlines, we’re a “Mad Max-style hellhole,” a reference to the post-apocalyptic movie franchise. Ouch.

I grant in the piece that the headline came from a news outlet known for being sensationalist, but as Kansas City prepares to host the World Cup in 2026, our international reputation is important.

Speaking to Pete Mundo on KCMO Talk Radio the morning of May 23, Mayor Quinton Lucas, just back from a junket to Qatar, said this [at 2:32]:

Of course the Qataris were very interested in saying, “we can send people over, free of charge, to come help you.” I’ll make sure I have a chat with [KC Police] Chief Stacey Graves and some of the others before we do that, but, [it’s a] well-resourced country.

That statement came right after a discussion about transportation, but Chief Graves does not handle city transportation, nor does she serve on the board of KC2026, the committee formed to organize efforts to host the 2026 FIFA event. It appears the mayors’ understanding was that the Qataris were expressing a security concern and offering to send assistance.

Federal law does not permit foreign nationals to exercise any police powers on U.S. soil. While there may be plenty of coordination among governments and their law enforcement agencies prior to events like the World Cup, I doubt that would be handled by the hosting city’s police chief.

Just as Mayor Lucas would have been in no position to coordinate security with a foreign entity, it’s possible that the Qatari making the offer was in no position to provide it. I don’t know.

What is clear, even if Lucas doesn’t realize the implication of the offer, is that Kansas City is seen internationally as a place that cannot provide public safety to its own citizens or international visitors. That won’t be solved by advertising on buses in London, but by competent management of city resources—something we have yet to see.

The post Is Kansas City a Public Safety Charity Case? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

With a new mayor taking office, St. Louis begins yet another chapter in its long, uneven push toward revitalization. The challenges are familiar: population decline, economic disparity, fractured politics, and struggling public institutions.

But the most daunting task ahead may not be solving those problems—it may be changing how the city is perceived.

A recent national study published in the Journal of Business Venturing Insights surveyed more than 500 entrepreneurs and prospective employees on how they evaluate U.S. cities when deciding where to live, work, or launch a business. The researchers, Kaitlyn DeGhetto and Zachary Russell, didn’t just ask about taxes or economic conditions. They asked how people feel about cities—how safe, stable, and welcoming they seem. And in those perceptions, St. Louis landed in a troubling middle ground: not the most dangerous or dysfunctional, but clearly among the cities seen as risky, especially when it comes to safety and governance.

Out of 25 major U.S. cities, St. Louis was ranked 10th in perceived safety risk—where #1 is the most dangerous. Respondents were asked about “the likelihood that individuals’ security and physical well-being will be endangered due to the normalization of aggression and criminality.”

St. Louis fared better on other measures. It ranked 13th in perceived social risk—how inclusive or equitable a city feels—and 17th on political risk, which the study defined as the threat of erratic or self-serving government action. Still, for a city that has had three mayors in eight years, that perception may be hard to shake.

These findings won’t surprise many locals. But they carry weight outside city borders. Perception—fair or not—influences investment decisions. Employers notice. So do renters, families, and job seekers trying to choose between St. Louis and cities like Charlotte, Austin, or Nashville.

This is the modern challenge for post-industrial cities. It’s no longer enough to compete on cost of living or square footage. Cities are now judged on vibes—by the headlines they generate, the stories residents share on social media, the narratives that take root far from City Hall. And while that may seem superficial, it’s anything but. In an economy increasingly driven by talent and mobility, a city’s reputation can make or break its efforts to attract the very people and businesses needed to fuel a turnaround. The difference here is that St. Louis must deliver not with soccer stadiums or entertainment districts, but with basic services.

We can and should debate the objective data—what’s truly happening on our streets, whether crime is up or down, and how we compare nationally. In the immediate past, St. Louis has seen reductions in certain types of crime. But the more difficult task—the one that falls squarely on the shoulders of the new administration—is shaping what people believe about the city in the first place.

There will be a temptation to reach for slogans or launch rebranding campaigns. But what’s needed is substantive progress—not just on public safety, but in how city government performs. That means competent service delivery, clear budgeting, and leadership that resists the pull of yesterday’s political fights in favor of building civic trust and shared purpose.

In the DeGhetto and Russell study, entrepreneurs ranked safety risk as their top concern—above taxes or regulatory burdens. Conservative respondents emphasized crime and political dysfunction. Liberal respondents focused more on social inclusion. That tells us something important: Everyone is watching, but they’re seeing different things.

For St. Louis, that means the mayor can’t govern just for applause from any one audience. The challenge is to build broad confidence. Do people believe this city is safe? Do they believe it’s run competently? Do they see a place where they and their children can thrive?

The answers may be shaped as much by tone and transparency as by policy. But they begin, inevitably, with what city leaders do to promote public safety—and just as importantly, what people think they’re doing.

Perception isn’t everything. But for a city trying to reverse decades of loss, it’s not enough to make progress—it has to look like progress, too.

The post St. Louis Crime Reduction: Progress, Pitfalls, and the Path Forward appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Kansas City Councilwoman Melissa Robinson recently posted, “On a beautiful Saturday, my 16 and 10 year old ride the bus to the KC Wheel and my only worry and constant reminder is “stay on the sidewalk, be careful walking!”

In Kansas City, fatalities spiked significantly during the pandemic and have remained high, with 103 deaths recorded in 2021. This was the highest total in over three decades, marking a substantial increase compared to pre-pandemic levels. While the numbers decreased to 90 fatalities in 2022, they climbed again to 102 in 2023, indicating persistent safety challenges on the city’s streets. The city has been trying to reduce fatalities through its Vision Zero program, a safety initiative launched in 2020 and intended to eliminate traffic deaths by 2030. However, the program has faced challenges due to limited funding and political support.

St. Louis has faced similar issues, with pedestrian fatalities particularly concerning. In 2021, the city and county combined saw 178 traffic-related deaths, and in 2022, the figure slightly decreased to 173. The City of St. Louis recorded 78 fatalities in 2022, one of the highest annual totals, reflecting a concerning trend. Pedestrian deaths in St. Louis County, in particular, have increased dramatically over the last decade, with areas on high-speed corridors responsible for a significant portion of these fatalities. Mayor Tishaura Jones recently posted, “Parents are afraid to let their children play outside or walk or bike to school because they would have to navigate roads built for big, motorized vehicles.”

It’s easy to argue that each city’s homicide rate takes precedent over traffic safety. Advocates for reform doubtlessly believe that efforts to reduce traffic deaths are underfunded—and they may have a point. Streets probably could be better designed; pedestrian infrastructure could be improved.

The job of running a city is difficult, there are so many priorities to balance. Public safety needs to be a priority, and that extends beyond homicide rates. I suspect however, that the initial solutions are the same: swift and sure enforcement of existing law.

The post Missouri’s Mean Streets appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

But regardless of what is being celebrated, events like these point to a vibrant city.

Sadly, this may not be the case on the other side of the state in St. Louis.

On July 25, St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones was on hand to help hype the “Q in the Lou” barbecue festival, scheduled to be held on the grounds of the Gateway Arch in early September. Jason Hall, CEO of Greater St. Louis, a non-profit dedicated to revitalizing the city, was triumphal in saying that bringing this “signature national festival back to downtown St Louis is showing how this community is answering that call taking action and making us stronger.”

Apparently not.

Q in the Lou has been canceled. According the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

Sean Hadley, one of the organizers of the event, confirmed the cancellation Monday afternoon, citing trouble garnering corporate sponsorship and VIP ticket sales — and public safety concerns disputed by the mayor’s office.

“We’re seeing a lack of support,” Hadley said. “It’s not there.”

This truly is a shame. St. Louis has a real problem with public safety and the public perception. Subsidized events and buildings won’t change that. It can only be solved by the slow and difficult work of public policy, including increasing public safety, keeping the city clean and orderly, maintaining infrastructure, and doing all of this in a cost-efficient manner.

There is no shortcut, no matter how good the ribs are.

The post STL Q Down the Loo appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Susan Pendergrass speaks with Charles Fain Lehman, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, about his recent report titled Doing Less with Less: Crime and Punishment in Washington, DC. They explore the factors contributing to the rise in violent crime and public disorder, the impact of reduced law enforcement capacity, the broader implications for public safety, potential reforms to improve the criminal justice system, strategies for better resource allocation, and more.

Listen on Spotify

Listen on Apple Podcasts 

Listen on SoundCloud

Produced by Show-Me Opportunity

The post Addressing Crime in Our Cities with Charles Fain Lehman appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Fast forward to 2024, and that sales tax is up for renewal. However, because the pension system is much better funded now, city leaders don’t want to renew the 3/4 cent sales tax as it is. That would generate more money for the pension than it needs.

So Springfield leaders put a commission together to come up with ways to alter the tax revenue distributions before it goes to voters in November.

A Kinsley Gaffe is when politicians accidentally say something truthful they didn’t mean to. (This is the second such gaffe worth highlighting in Missouri in the past few months.) In this case, the statement is filtered through the media, I admit, but the reporter must have got the gist of it from local leaders:

The tax will sunset at the end of March 2025, hence why the city has been adamant to put a replacement tax on the November ballot to avoid a lapse in the sales tax that local shoppers would feel. (emphasis added)

A lapse that voters would feel? Meaning a tax reduction Springfield residents may actually like? Dear Lord, we certainly can’t have that. If they like the reductions, they may not vote to increase the tax when we want them to, Oh, the humanity.

The new proposal is for voters to keep a 1/4 cent sales tax for public safety—which can still include pension costs—and change the rest of the tax (1/2 cent) to fund “comprehensive plan capital and parks projects and neighborhood and community initiatives.” (More on that issue later.)

Springfield still has a defined-benefit pension plan for its public safety employees. It should have switched to a defined-contribution plan years ago. At least the city, according to the article, closed the old plan to new members several years ago and, presumably, replaced it with a less generous plan for new hires. That’s progress, but a defined-contribution plan for Springfield employees would have been better for the taxpayers and the city. Throwing tax dollars at the pension fund appears to have worked for now, but further change is needed. As former Show-Me Institute Chief Economist Joe Haslag wrote about the Springfield pension situation years ago: “The existing approach got Springfield into this situation. Some reform is needed to avoid the same problems in the future.”

The post Springfield Wants to Be Darn Sure Its Sales Tax Rate Doesn’t Ever Go Down appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

There is probably no better opportunity for counties and municipalities to share services and save tax money than in emergency 911 dispatching services. As vital as the service is, if the technology is effective and the operator is properly trained, it makes no difference if the emergency call is answered down the block in New Madrid, Missouri, or across the ocean in old Madrid, Spain.

In southeastern Missouri, Perry County and the City of Perryville reviewed numerous options for upgrading their 911 system. In late 2023, they determined that the best option from a service and cost perspective was to contract with neighboring St. Francois County, which has already implemented the improved technology a modern 911 system requires. Perplexingly, some residents of Perry County have objected to this.

According to news reports, the main objection is the loss of a few 911 system jobs, as if the main role of local government is to keep as many people on the payroll as possible. That’s how political machines function, not quality local government. The objectors have succeeded in putting the consolidation question on the upcoming April election ballot. Hopefully, the voters will value tax savings and improved public safety over government job protections.

Many counties and cities around Missouri share emergency operations dispatching. County sheriff’s departments can do more than simply share service with other county sheriffs; they can operate together with city police departments, fire districts, university police departments, ambulance districts, and more. The economies of scale here allow for implementation of better technology in larger 911 systems, saving taxpayer money. The city of Flint, Michigan, saved over a million dollars a year and was able to eliminate 23 positions by joining the Genesee County 911 system.

To give a Missouri example of savings for taxpayers, Lake Ozark recently contracted with Miller County to handle its 911 system. Lake Ozark will save around $200,000 per year in direct costs while avoiding spending even more to upgrade its own soon-to-be obsolete 911 system.

Closer to Perry County, the Cape Girardeau County sheriff’s 911 dispatch system handles calls not only for the sheriff but also for eight other fire and ambulance districts and police, fire, and ambulance calls for Jackson. Does anyone seriously think the public would be better served with 10 different 911 systems in the county, each one struggling to hire and train employees and regularly upgrade expensive technology?

For one final example, in 2016 the City of New Madrid and New Madrid County partnered to consolidate their 911 systems and upgrade their technology. I hope the citizens of Perry County realize how common and beneficial these types of partnership are in Southeast Missouri.

Saving money by sharing the costs of technological improvements is more important than ever since salaries for 911 dispatchers are increasing substantially in an effort to recruit more people to the job. Currently, staffing shortages are the major problem facing dispatching systems all over the country, and have been partially responsible for recent 911 system problems in Kansas City and St. Louis. Maintaining multiple systems requiring more employees using lesser technology isn’t going to help the people of Perry County.

These are just a few good examples of 911 consolidation around Missouri. While there are many success stories in both urban and rural parts of our state, numerous opportunities for change still exist. Wherever you are in Missouri, enhanced public safety technology and more efficient use of tax dollars through 911 consolidation are two things we can all support. Hopefully, the voters of Perry County will recognize these benefits in April.

The post 911 Systems Are a Great Opportunity for Local Government Cooperation appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

There is probably no better opportunity for municipalities to share services for public benefit than in emergency 911 dispatching services. Lake Ozark and Osage Beach deserve credit for considering this change, which can improve public safety and save taxpayer money at the same time.  Lake Ozark appears to be moving ahead with the necessary legislation, and Osage Beach should move forward with it as well.

In 2015, Lawrence County in southwestern Missouri began a process to consolidate and modernize all the 911 systems for its various agencies, including the county sheriff, nine municipal police and fire departments, fire districts, and ambulance districts. The municipality of Aurora stated that it would save $400,000 by joining the new, countywide 911 system and closing its own system. The combined system is currently investing in an upgraded 911 center to provide even better service to the county.

There are many more opportunities for 911 consolidation around the state and in the Lake region. Municipal police departments aren’t limited to sharing service with other police departments; they can operate together with fire districts, county sheriffs, university police departments, ambulance districts, and more. The economies of scale allow for greater enhancement of technology in larger 911 systems, and it saves taxpayer money, just like in Lawrence County and elsewhere in Missouri.

Change may not be easy, but consolidating 911 systems is the perfect opportunity to both invest in better public safety for cities and better manage tax dollars.

The post Shared Emergency Dispatching Services appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

And what’s being done? Judging from the latest press conference held by the police chief and mayor yesterday, not much:

The Violent Crime Reduction Initiative first unveiled at a news conference in mid-May and doubled down on by officials Wednesday after the latest spike in violence involves what’s described as an aggressive collaboration between police and a host of other groups, who have ventured into some of the poorest neighborhoods to knock on doors, offering social services, and promising enhanced city services to further spread the gospel of crime prevention.

Several community activists and those working with KCPD say the new strategy encourages more collaboration between police and local organizations. But they also say it’s not all that new of a concept. Others are even less optimistic, pointing to a fractured relationship between police and the community, and a focus on criminals instead of the underlying causes of violence. [Emphasis mine]

With continuing attempts at defunding the police, city leaders have done a bang-up job of making Kansas City less safe. While I’m as big a booster as any of my hometown, it’s become increasingly isolated from the rest of the state in its effort to adopt California’s prerogatives rather than Missouri’s.

Like most things involving human interactions, Kansas City’s crime problem is complex. But it shouldn’t take, or appear to take, a professional sports team considering a new home in a neighboring city and county for Kansas City officials to get serious about their most fundamental charge of public safety. Sure, it may be more fun as a government official to show up to parades and wear construction helmets at groundbreakings, but the hard work of governing is far more mundane—and far more important—than waving a pennant during winning years and taking credit by proxy for the athletes assembled by the city’s professional sports franchises.

Kansas City officials need to get back to basics—not just to keep the Royals, but because it’s what they owe all their citizens. We’ll see if it’s too late to keep the baseball team, but to hear the governor talk about it, it’s possible that cake is already baked.

The post Kansas City Leaders Need to Get a Handle on Crime Situation—Now appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Many people simply do not feel safe in St. Louis. As a city resident, I have incorporated several different habits while living in the city. To name two, I look both ways at every single green light and I ensure nothing of value is visible in my car. Auto thefts have been on the rise, and in particular, thefts of two brands (Hyundai and Kia) have soared from 273 to 3,958 in the past year in the City of St. Louis.

While there is a specific design flaw that has led to Kia and Hyundai thefts skyrocketing, the lack of punishment and deterrence might be contributing to rising vehicle crime in the city. From August 1 to August 13 in 2022, 462 cars were stolen or attempted stolen in the City of St. Louis. Yet despite the surge in auto thefts, only 1 person was charged in city courts for a crime related to auto theft during the same two week period. Whether this is due to lack of punishment or lack of law enforcement capacity to find the culprits, city residents are suffering all the same.

The lack of regard for traffic rules visible on a daily basis. For example, the day I wrote this piece, my coworker and I saw someone drive into oncoming traffic on Kingshighway Blvd, veer in front of someone turning left from the adjacent street, and blatantly run a red light. These everyday close calls can turn into fatal crashes. Despite a declining population, 230 people were killed in traffic crashes in the City of St. Louis City from 2020–2022 (with a 20 year record high of 81 in 2020) as compared to 128 from 2008–2010.

While there has been a national increase in traffic fatalities in recent years, it seems fair to wonder if local policy in St. Louis has exacerbated that trend. Even as reckless driving has seemed to increase, vehicle stops in the city have declined from their peak of 85,622 in 2009 to 45,124 in 2021. Similarly, traffic citations have decreased from 34,833 in 2009 to 17,763 in 2021. Again, whether this is due to a decision to not punish this type of crime or a lack of capacity to effectively patrol the streets, City of St. Louis residents suffer the consequences all the same.

The decline of a proud and historic city like St. Louis is a sad thing to witness. We are known as the Gateway to the West, yet sadly our streets right now more closely resemble the Wild West. If city leaders want to attract new residents and prevent current residents from leaving, they need to get a serious handle on the public safety issue, and they need to do it quickly.

The post How to Lose a City of St. Louis Guy in 10 Days appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Although policy on scooters hasn’t changed in the last month, it has become clearer that scooters weren’t as much to blame for the Saint Louis crime spike as the Post-Dispatch suggested in the article that inspired my first scooter post. An article from the same source on June 27 quoted several downtown business owners and residents who all agreed that although teenagers on scooters may have been a traffic disturbance, the real danger wasn’t young riders disobeying the rules of the road.

The owners of the downtown Insomnia Cookies location have moved closing time to midnight from 3 a.m. and no longer accept cash because of robberies by armed youths. The owner of NAPPS Natural Hair Salon has seen an increase in crime among adults who come downtown to party. Some residents report seeing children who aren’t yet teenagers carrying guns near apartment buildings. Clearly, teens on scooters aren’t the biggest threat to public safety and commerce downtown. The ban on scooters for the last few weeks has been a band-aid solution to what is often literally a bullet-hole problem.

There are changes that should be seriously considered to improve the scooter situation, such as the rider age and speed limit restrictions suggested by rental companies, which I discussed in my prior post. But a complete ban on scooters seems to be putting the cart before the horse. Safety in downtown Saint Louis is a problem with no simple solutions, but aldermen should start by finding a solution to the scooter issue that doesn’t punish law-abiding residents and visitors instead of scapegoating a useful means of public transit.

The post The Scooter Ban Revisited (Or Not) appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The Post-Dispatch story notes that some politicians and employee unions are upset that they have not been included in these plans so far. Fine, include them in the planning going forward. Problem solved. But don’t let them—especially the employee unions— stymie this plan. I don’t see why they would—there are so many vacancies in the current 911 systems that I would be surprised if any jobs would get cut. If employee unions have constructive ways to improve the 911 system changes, then we should listen to them. If the Board of Aldermen does its job and asks tough questions about the plan, then those questions should be answered.

But keep the new plan moving forward. This is the low-hanging fruit of changes that could improve public safety for the people of St. Louis and save tax dollars at the same time.

The post 911 System Cost Savings Are No Joke appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

I have no doubt that the sales tax is being proposed in order to make sure that tourists pay their “fair share” of the costs for greater law enforcement in the area. The Lake is one region where either a sales tax or a property tax increase is going to raise significant tax money from non-permanent residents, with either tourists paying the sales (and lodging) taxes or vacation homeowners paying the property taxes.

But back to the sales tax increase. Residents know better than anyone if increased or better law enforcement in Camden County is required. They and the tourists (like me) will pay for it. But is there money available outside of a tax increase? Here are some things to consider:

• Online sales tax collections are coming (officially) to Missouri, which will increase local tax collections starting in 2023.
• Parson just signed the gas tax increase, which (assuming it survives legal challenges) will further lead to more money for counties. (The money raised has to be used on roads, but that loosens up other tax revenues.)
• In the short term, Camden County is set to get almost $9 million from the stimulus plan. That is, shall we say, a lot of money.
• Housing values are soaring, and even with the required tax rate rollbacks, there will still likely be noticeable local property tax collection increases.

Leaving aside this increased future revenue, are there other ways to increase funding for law enforcement in Camden County without tax increases?

I would suggest two things. First of all, get control of the generous tax subsidies granted to developers in the region. That is tax money that is given away to private interests instead of going to public services. The Lake Ozark region has currently promised TIF subsidies of $395 million. $395 million! To be clear, because the TIF reports don’t give addresses, and because many Lake of the Ozarks cities are in multiple counties, I can’t determine how much of that is within Camden County itself. But undoubtedly it is a very large amount of tax subsidies over the next decade or so, very likely in the hundreds of millions. That is tax revenue that could have been used for public services, including law enforcement.

Another option is greater consolidation of 911 emergency dispatching services, like Miller County and many other Missouri communities do. Camden County law enforcement agencies appear to operate their own dispatching services, which is an area ripe for economies of scale and cost savings.

But in the end, the choice, as it should be, is up to the voters.

The post A New Sales Tax for Law Enforcement in the Lake of the Ozarks appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Susan Pendergrass, Patrick Ishmael and David Stokes discuss a new report that claims Missouri ranks 49th in K-12 education funding, Property Reassessments and Upcoming Property Tax Hike Votes, new TIF deals around the state and the call from some Missouri legislators for a special session on public safety.

More ways to listen:

Apple Podcasts

The post Podcast: Missouri Education Spending, More Corporate Giveaways and Talk of a Special Session on Public Safety appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

On this episode of the podcast, Susan Pendergrass is joined by Hannah E. Meyers. They discuss what cities can do to prioritize the public safety of their citizens.

Hannah E. Meyers is director of the policing and public safety initiative at the Manhattan Institute. Most recently, she managed corporate and private investigation teams for an international firm and directed research strategy for a counter-extremism NGO. She served for five years with the Intelligence Bureau of the New York City Police Department, partnering with detectives on counterterrorism investigations and bringing one of the first state-level terrorism cases to prosecution. During her time at NYPD, she also supervised an intelligence analysis team and was seconded to the FBI. Earlier in her career, Hannah did think tank research pertaining to terrorism and human rights, was a contributing writer on a variety of topics and served as deputy director of policy for a New York State gubernatorial nominee.

Download A Public Safety and Policing Plan for NYC’s Next Mayor

More ways to listen

Click Here  to Listen on Apple podcasts

The post SMI Podcast: A Playbook for Public Safety with Hannah E. Meyers appeared first on Show-Me Institute.