While Las Vegas is always a place where people go to have fun, there’s a more sinister side to it as well. Between stories of murders, robberies, and assaults, Sin City has struggled with crime rates during and after the pandemic.
homicides falling by almost 23% in 2024, motor theft dropping by 30%, robberies by 14%
Efforts to combat this uptick appear to be working, with homicides falling by almost 23% in 2024, motor theft dropping by 30%, robberies by 14%, and burglaries by 10%.
Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) Sheriff Kevin McMahill delivered his 2025 State of the Department address on Tuesday, talking through some of the specifics:
One of his big points of contention is the introduction of cameras to catch people running red lights. He called on lawmakers to implement this change as he’s “sick and tired of picking people off of our streets because of the bad, irresponsible driving behavior of people.”
The department’s big goals in 2025 include lowering the number of road fatalities to fewer than 125, keeping homicides fewer than 100, and halving the number of police shootings.
Many other major US cities experienced similar improvements in 2024, including Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York. One of the biggest drops was in Philadelphia, with murders falling from 398 in 2023 to 255 last year.