Miami, in 2023, was the safest the city has ever been. That’s what Police Chief Manny Morales said in a Wednesday message while joined by city officials, including Mayor Francis Suarez.

The city recorded 31 homicides last year, down from 49 in 2022, Suarez said. The trend is on par with nationwide data, which indicates the country as a whole marked the largest annual drop in murders on record in 2023. Murders spiked during the upheaval of the pandemic and the unrest fueled by the police murder of George Floyd in 2020, news reports say.

Suarez contrasted last year’s figures with those of the 1980s, a drug-fueled era in which Miami saw waves of violence and years that claimed more than 200 murders. And the city even saw one fewer killing in 2023 than in 1947 — the first year crime data was collected in the municipality.

Of 2023’s 31 murders, all but one were closed with an arrest, Morales said. The department solved 70% of its homicides in 2022, the same year that the nationwide rate of unsolved murders reached a record high, dipping below 50%.

“Now, obviously, that’s 31 too many,” Suarez said. “We’d love to have a year when we end with zero, and that will always be the goal.”

What were other crime trends?

According to Suarez and Morales, Miami also witnessed:

▪ A 34% decrease in non-fatal shootings, from 151 to 100;

▪ A drop in “non-contact” shootings, from 379 to 255;

▪ Law enforcement respond to more than 355,000 calls;

▪ Officers make almost 16,000 arrests;

▪ A 15% dip in complaints filed against officers, which sat at 223 last year.

Why the drop in violent crime?

For Suarez, the decrease is due to the increase of city funding to the police department as well as investing in “innovative crime fighting technology.”

But the department’s “aggressive enforcement stance,” Morales said, has also prevented surges of violence linked to the opioid epidemic, which many cities across the country are grappling with. Morales vowed to continue “aggressively” enforcing the law to ensure Miami “stays free” of the epidemic.

Christine King, the chair of the Miami Commission, said community policing contributes to the reduction in violent crime.

“The first time you meet an officer… is not when you’re getting arrested,” King said. “ They are here. They are in the streets.”