Guest Blog by AZPHA member Mike Humphrey
Tucson has reason to be encouraged by the recent decline in violent crime. But we should resist the temptation to turn that good news into a political victory lap.
Before we congratulate one program, agency or elected official — or blame another — we should answer a more basic question:
What is actually working to reduce violence in Tucson?
We don’t have a good enough answer. We need one. Tucson and Pima County should create a public 2020-2025 Gun Violence and Criminal Justice Scorecard that brings together the information necessary to evaluate our public-safety strategies. This should not be a partisan exercise. It should be an accountability tool for our community.
Reported violent-crime statistics are an important starting point, but they don’t tell us everything. Crime victims that don’t report generally don’t appear in police statistics. Changes in police staffing, enforcement practices, victims’ willingness to report and crime-reporting systems can also affect what gets recorded. That doesn’t make the statistics meaningless. It means we need to understand their limitations.
A decline in reported crime is encouraging. But it isn’t necessarily proof that actual violence declined by the same percentage. And when a policy is followed by a decline in crime, that doesn’t prove the policy caused it. National crime trends, economic conditions, demographic changes, firearm availability, drug markets and community-based violence-intervention efforts may also contribute.
That’s why Tucson needs a broader scoreboard.
The scorecard should track, year by year:
- Homicides and firearm homicides;
- Nonfatal shootings and shooting victims;
- Violent crime-related hospitalization costs;
- Aggravated assaults and robberies involving firearms;
- Total reported violent crime;
- Police calls for service involving violence, weapons and disturbances;
- Tucson Police Department staffing levels and arrests;
- Violent-crime clearance rates;
- Prosecution, dismissal and diversion rates;
- Sentences and probation outcomes for serious violent and firearm offenses;
- Prohibited-possessor firearm prosecutions; and
- Participation and outcomes of community-based violence-intervention and diversion programs.
Just as important, every number should identify its source, definition and geographic scope. A Tucson Police Department statistic should not be confused with a Pima County statistic. An arrest should not be confused with a prosecution, and a prosecution should not be confused with a conviction.
There are already promising signs worth examining. The Pima County Attorney’s Office reports that it charged 572 prohibited-possessor firearm cases in 2024, while federal partners charged another 60 through the Public Safety Partnership. Those numbers suggest substantial firearm enforcement. But they don’t tell us whether that enforcement reduced future violence. That’s precisely why we need better measurement.
If prosecution is preventing repeat offenders from committing new crimes, let’s demonstrate it. If police strategies are reducing shootings, let’s measure the effect. If community violence-intervention programs are saving lives, let’s identify what works and expand it. And if inadequate staffing or unreported crime is causing official statistics to understate violence, the public deserves to know that, too.
We should demand the same evidence from every approach to public safety. Tucson doesn’t need another argument based on competing political narratives or selective statistics.
We need a common set of facts. We need to know what we know, what we don’t know and what the evidence actually supports. A publicly available Gun Violence and Criminal Justice Scorecard would give Tucson something it currently lacks: a factual basis for deciding which public-safety strategies deserve to be continued, expanded or changed.
Good public policy begins with good information. Tucson should start collecting and reporting it.