During the Strickland administration a multi-pronged approach to fighting crime was adopted that included increasing the size of the police force, reducing recidivism, and supporting tougher sentences for certain violent crimes. For purposes of this measure, we define "major violent crime" using the FBI's Part 1 crime classification, which includes homicide, aggravated assault, rape, and robbery. We track the year-to-date percent change in violent crime to monitor our progress towards reducing crime and creating a safer city for all Memphians.

The Memphis Police Department (MPD) uses a variety of best-practice policing tools to fight crime, including a proactive, predictive policing initiative called Operation Blue CRUSH. With Blue CRUSH, the MPD uses data about past crimes to identify potential and emerging “hot spots” so that it can deploy officers more effectively in the field. Operation Blue Crush is operated by the Real Time Crime Center, which collects incident information as it’s happening and monitors more than 500 cameras around the city. By improving the flow of information and getting it quickly into officers’ hands, the Real Time Crime Center enables the MPD to deter more crime and respond faster when crimes happen.  

In addition, MPD operates the Community Outreach Program (COP), which places a concentration of police officers in neighborhoods where crime is high in order to identify opportunities for crime prevention, and build trust and respectful relationships with residents.