Íøºì±¬ÁÏ

A Safer Baltimore

February 6, 2026   |   Alex Likowski

Everyone is impacted by crime. Four years ago, Mayor Brandon Scott recounted that his mother had been working inside a Giant store in Park Heights when a shooting occurred. In fact, many years earlier it was another shooting that led to his career in public service. Before he was even seven years old, the future mayor witnessed a shooting he says he just couldn’t get over. According to Scott, his mother told him if he wanted things to change, he would need to change them himself.

Jumping ahead a few decades, at the start of this year, news outlets published headlines like this one on : “2025 crime data shows Baltimore records lowest homicide rate in nearly 50 years.” 

“Together, we are helping folks put down the guns and change their lives, supporting job programs and apprenticeships, and investing in our communities by building schools, rec centers, libraries, pools, and playgrounds,” the mayor explained. “For those of us who have seen the worst of gun violence - who experienced the pain of 300 homicides, year after year - this progress is especially meaningful.”

And it’s not just homicides. Comparing 2025 with 2024, homicides were down 31%, non-fatal shootings down 25%, rapes, down 27%, and carjackings were down 37%.

"This progress was neither inevitable nor by accident," said Baltimore City Police (BPD) Commissioner Richard Worley. "It's a direct result of sustained collaboration, strategic focus and collective commitment of all of our agencies, along with building trust and engagement with the communities we serve. The Department continues to show that investing in our members and strengthening relationships with our citizens leads to real, measurable reductions in violence."

Those investments are central to the city’s 5-year . Published in 2021, the plan takes a new approach. “Historically,” the plan says, “Baltimore has over-relied on the 3Ps – policing, prosecutions, and prisons – in an attempt to reduce violence and strengthen community safety. This strategy has not only failed to yield long-term results. It has also come at an extremely high social cost to many of our most vulnerable communities.”

The new approach centers around five priorities: building public safety, clean and healthy neighborhoods, equitable neighborhood development, prioritizing our youth, and responsible stewardship of city resources.

Using those priorities as a compass, the was created at the very end of 2020 to work with law enforcement agencies, including BPD and the State’s Attorney’s Office, city agencies, and community-based organizations to coordinate public safety efforts across Baltimore.

Included in that list of community-based organizations are of course some of our own Íøºì±¬ÁÏ, Baltimore (UMB)-operated programs, including the Center for Violence Prevention and the EMBRACE initiative, which utilizes a team of peer recovery specialists, credible messengers, and social workers to provide a wide array of help on everything from conflict mediation to mental health services.

UMB is also working to reduce violent crime with the help of our own University Police Department. One very successful example of that is the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) program, which redirects people arrested for low-level drug offenses to treatment, a case manager, and other services.

On February 4, BPD Commissioner Richard Worley joined UMB President Bruce E. Jarrell, MD, FACS, for a wide-ranging discussion of crime and safety in Baltimore in a UMB community town hall. Worley, who became commissioner in 2023, is a native Baltimorean who began his police career in 1998 as a BPD patrol officer.

The program also includes questions from a live audience at the Íøºì±¬ÁÏ Francis King Carey School of Law Moot Courtroom, as well as a much larger virtual audience. To watch the entire program, access the link at the top of this page.