Mobile Police: Violent crime numbers trending down after 2022

Published: Jan. 31, 2023 at 6:08 PM CST

MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) - Mobile Police Chief Paul Prine is disputing a study from MoneyGeek that lists Mobile as the second most dangerous city in America behind St. Louis.

“That article is also misleading. That article says for 2023 these are the most violent cities. The last data you collected was in 2021,” said Prine.

In 2021 St. Louis had 200 homicides while Mobile had 51. The article ranks the cities based on crime data and research on the societal costs of crime. Prine isn’t buying it.

“How do you put a cost on human life? So again I don’t know their methodology, I don’t know the parameters they used to come up with these numbers,” added Prine.

As for last year’s crime numbers, Prine says Mobile saw a decrease in violent crime.

“Armed robberies were down 28%; sexual assaults were down 11%; assaults involving gunshot victims were down 13%; 20% down in the shooting into cases,” said Prine.

The most notable change is a 20% drop in homicides from 51 in 2021 to 41 in 2022.

“That’s 10 families that didn’t have to grieve the loss of a loved one last year,” said Prine. “That’s also 10 young men or women that are not going to spend the rest of their lives in prison.”

Prine says a lot of that is thanks to more community involvement which includes more people sending in crime tips.

“We’ve even had several scenarios where mothers have turned their children in for being involved in criminal activity because of the idea that they feel like their children are at least alive in jail or in prison vs dead in the street,” said Prine.

We did reach out to MoneyGeek to get more info on how it came up with the cost of crime numbers. We’ll be sure to update you when we learn more.

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