With three weeks left in 2018, Memphis has recorded 178 homicides. The year will almost certainly finish near 184, up from 176 in 2017. Six more people killed than last year. Six more families shattered. Six more crime scenes on Memphis streets that most of us drive past without slowing down.
The raw number is staggering on its own. Put it in context and it gets worse. Memphis has roughly 650,000 residents. Our per-capita murder rate is more than five times the national average. We rank in the top five most dangerous cities in America by virtually every measure, and we’ve been stuck there for years.
I’ve covered crime in this city for a long time. I don’t pretend to have easy answers. What I can do is walk through the 2018 numbers, identify what actually moved the needle, and point out where the city, and the private security industry, fell short.
The Geography of Violence
Memphis crime isn’t distributed evenly. It never has been. Certain neighborhoods absorb a wildly disproportionate share of the violence, and 2018 didn’t change that pattern.
Frayser led the city in homicides again this year with 22 through November. The area bounded by James Road, Thomas Street, and Highway 51 saw clusters of shootings throughout the summer. Several were drug-related. Others grew out of personal disputes that escalated faster than anyone could intervene.
Whitehaven recorded 19 homicides, concentrated along the Elvis Presley Boulevard corridor south of Shelby Drive. This stretch (gas stations, check-cashing shops, low-occupancy strip malls) has been a problem area for a decade. The businesses that remain are either too stubborn or too invested to leave. The ones that left aren’t coming back.
Orange Mound saw 14 killings, down slightly from 2017. Raleigh posted 16, up from 12 the year before. North and South Memphis combined for 31.
East Memphis, Germantown, Collierville, and Bartlett experienced relatively few violent crimes. That disparity isn’t news to anyone who lives here, but it’s worth stating plainly: if you live east of Highland Avenue, you experience a fundamentally different city than someone living west of it.
What MPD Tried
Director Michael Rallings came into 2018 with a strategy built around three pillars: community engagement, targeted enforcement, and technology.
The community engagement piece centered on the Blue CRUSH program, which places officers in high-crime neighborhoods for extended shifts focused on relationship-building rather than enforcement. Officers attend neighborhood meetings, visit churches, and walk business districts. The theory is that trust leads to tips, and tips lead to arrests.
On targeted enforcement, MPD deployed the Multi-Agency Gang Unit and the Organized Crime Unit to areas with concentrated violence. They executed search warrants, made gun seizures, and arrested known violent offenders. Through October, MPD had seized more than 5,600 guns, a record pace.
Technology upgrades included expanded use of ShotSpotter gunfire detection in Frayser and parts of North Memphis. The system uses acoustic sensors to detect gunshots and alert police within 60 seconds. MPD also added license plate readers at key intersections and expanded its network of surveillance cameras downtown and along major corridors.
Did any of it work? The answer depends on which metric you choose.
Where the Numbers Moved
Aggravated assaults (the category that includes shootings where the victim survives) dropped by about 4 percent through November compared to 2017. That’s meaningful. Fewer people shot. Fewer stabbings. Fewer beatings severe enough to require hospitalization.
Auto theft declined by roughly 6 percent. Memphis has been among the worst cities in the country for car theft for years, partly because of the Kia and Hyundai models that are absurdly easy to steal. The decline suggests that targeted enforcement on chop shop operations and the arrest of several organized auto theft rings made a dent.
Robbery numbers stayed essentially flat. Burglaries dropped by about 3 percent.
The homicide number went up. That’s the headline that will define 2018 for most people paying attention. You can cut it any way you want (statistically, 184 versus 176 is within normal variation), but try telling that to the eight additional families burying someone this year compared to last.
The Private Security Response
Here’s what changed significantly in 2018 that most crime coverage ignores: the private security industry in Memphis grew by an estimated 8 to 12 percent this year, measured by guard hours deployed.
That growth is being driven by commercial property owners and residential communities deciding they can’t wait for MPD to solve the problem. They’re hiring their own protection.
Apartment complexes in Hickory Hill and Raleigh that never had security guards five years ago now have them. Shopping centers along Winchester Road and Covington Pike have increased their security budgets. Even some homeowner associations in Cordova and Lakeland are pooling money for private patrol services.
The firms benefiting most from this trend are the ones with the capacity to scale quickly. Allied Universal and Securitas have added personnel in the Memphis market throughout 2018. Local firms like Phelps Security and Imperial Security report full contract books and waiting lists for new clients.
The question nobody can answer definitively is whether this private security growth is actually reducing crime or just displacing it. When a shopping center on Germantown Parkway hires guards, does crime drop or does it move to the shopping center on Summer Avenue that doesn’t have guards? The honest answer is probably both. Crime in guarded areas decreases. Crime in adjacent unguarded areas may increase. The net effect is hard to measure.
The Gun Problem
Any honest assessment of crime in Memphis has to address firearms. Of the 178 homicides recorded through November, approximately 85 percent involved a gun. Shootings account for the vast majority of aggravated assaults. Guns are used in most robberies.
MPD’s gun seizure numbers are impressive (5,600-plus through October), but they illustrate the scale of the problem as much as the response to it. For every gun seized, there are dozens more on Memphis streets. Tennessee’s permissive gun laws make legal purchases easy. The secondary market (private sales, gun shows, straw purchases) keeps illegal guns circulating.
The security industry is affected by this directly. Armed security guards in Tennessee must have specific endorsements on their PPS license, pass additional background checks, and qualify at a firing range. The training requirements are higher than what most permit holders complete. When a guard carries a weapon on duty, they’re operating under a different legal framework than a civilian carrying concealed.
In 2018, there were at least three incidents in Memphis where armed security guards discharged their firearms during confrontations. All three were investigated. The outcomes reinforced why proper training and use-of-force policies matter. Firms that cut corners on armed guard training are creating liability that one bad incident can turn into a multimillion-dollar lawsuit.
Neighborhoods That Improved
It’s not all bad news. Several Memphis neighborhoods showed measurable improvement in 2018.
Binghampton, which has been the focus of significant community investment and redevelopment, saw violent crime drop by roughly 15 percent. The Broad Avenue corridor has attracted new businesses and foot traffic, which creates natural surveillance and community ownership of public space.
The Medical District around Methodist and Le Bonheur hospitals experienced fewer incidents than in 2017, partly due to increased security staffing by the hospital systems and partly due to infrastructure improvements like better lighting and restricted parking access.
Downtown Memphis continued its trend of declining crime rates, though this has as much to do with gentrification pushing lower-income residents out as it does with effective policing or security measures. More surveillance cameras, more private security at new apartment buildings, more foot traffic from tourists and FedExForum event-goers. Downtown is safer than it was five years ago. It’s also a very different place than it was five years ago.
What 2019 Needs
I’m not going to pretend I have a prescription for fixing crime in Memphis. Smarter people than me have tried and the numbers keep coming back ugly.
What I can identify are specific, actionable things that could make 2019 marginally better.
MPD needs to maintain its community engagement programs even when budget pressure pushes toward putting every available officer on patrol. The relationships built through Blue CRUSH take years to develop and weeks to destroy. Pulling neighborhood officers for overtime shifts during crime spikes saves money in the short term and costs trust in the long term.
The private security industry needs better self-regulation. Tennessee’s PPS licensing requirements are adequate on paper. Enforcement is inconsistent. Companies operating with unlicensed guards or expired certifications face minimal consequences until something goes wrong. The Tennessee Private Protective Services board should increase random audits and publicize the results.
Property owners in high-crime areas need to invest in security rather than accepting crime as a cost of doing business. The data is clear: professional security presence reduces incidents. It’s an expense, not a luxury.
And the city as a whole needs to stop acting surprised every December when the homicide count comes in high. Memphis has a violence problem. It’s structural. It’s generational. It’s tied to poverty, education, housing, and employment in ways that no single policy or program can untangle.
Acknowledging that reality isn’t defeatism. It’s the starting point for any honest conversation about what comes next.
The 184 people who won’t see 2019 deserve at least that much honesty from the rest of us.