In reporting on crime and public safety, there are many factors to consider, including: the root causes of crime, drivers of incarceration, local investments in community housing and health, the collateral consequences of arrest and convictions, racial disparities in the criminal legal system, and the effect of police interactions on communities. The below statistics  provide local and national context for reporting on crime in New Mexico. 

Topline stats on crime and public safety 

Although homicides in Albuquerque are up this year, statewide, crime has continued a years-long decline. Instead, many of the people imprisoned in the state are not there for new crimes, but rather technical parole violations such as missed appointments.  

  • Many of the people locked up in state prison are not behind bars for new crimes. In 2021, the recidivism rate due to technical parole violations more than doubled compared to FY20 – from 13 percent to 30 percent. Source: NM Legislative Finance Committee
  • Technical violations of a probation or parole do not constitute new criminal offenses, and are often due to failed drug tests or missed appointments.
  • High levels of technical violation revocations cost the state an estimated $23.1 million in FY21, $9.5 million higher than FY20. Source: NM Legislative Finance Committee
  • In 2020, violent crime in New Mexico declined for the second consecutive year and is down 19 percent from a 1991 peak, according to newly-released FBI data. Property crime declined for a fourth straight year in 2020 and is down 53 percent since a 1997 high. Source: FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting data
  • Statewide homicide rates fell 11 percent from 2019 to 2020. 2021 data for the state has not yet been compiled, though current data shows that homicides in Albuquerque have already surpassed the total for 2020. This is in line with an overall uptick in homicides in cities across the country. Source: FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting data
  • Despite overall decreasing crime rates, New Mexico’s prison population grew 481 percent between 1980 and 2016. Source: ACLU Smart Justice report

New Mexico pretrial detention stats and trends

In 2016, New Mexico approved a constitutional amendment that prohibits judges from detaining defendants solely because they cannot afford bail. Although it is often argued that allowing more people out pre-trial causes an escalation in crime, a recent study conducted by the University of New Mexico Institute for Social Research found that is not true.

  • The study by University of New Mexico Institute for Social Research, which looked at more than 10,000 felony cases in Bernalillo County and found that 95% of felony defendants were not arrested for a violent crime while on pretrial release. Source: UNM Institute for Social Research
  • Of the cases analyzed, only 13 were arrested for a first-degree felony while on pretrial release, or about 0.1% of the total. Source: UNM Institute for Social Research

Who is behind bars in New Mexico

From racial profiling in policing to racial dispariaties in sentencing, our criminal legal system disproportionately targets people of color for arrest, charges, and incarceration. People struggling with serious mental illness and substance abuse problems are also over represented in the criminal legal system. 

New Mexico law enforcement violence and funding 

Law enforcement officers are meant to keep communities safe, but too often they shoot and kill community members throughout New Mexico. Fear of police violence deters people from reporting crimes, erodes trust between communities and the police, and ultimately, jeopardizes public safety. Despite these trends, cities like Albuquerque, whose police department has been under a consent decree with the United States Department of Justice since 2015, continue to spend millions on policing and insufficiently fund alternatives to policing.  

  • The rate at which people in New Mexico are shot and killed  by law enforcement is the highest in the country. Source: Mapping Police Violence
  • The monitor's latest report showed the Albuquerque Police Department (APD) suffered its worst setback in compliance since the monitoring process began in 2015. Source: APD Forward
  • APD has been in a court ordered settlement agreement with the Department of justice since 2015, following a year-long investigation into APD’s practices, which found that APD had a “pattern or practice of use of excessive force.” Source: Department of Justice.
  • New Mexico spent $329.8 million on the Corrections Department in fiscal year 2020, more than it spent on the University of New Mexico during that time. Source: New Mexico fiscal year 2022 state budget.
  • Albuquerque directed just under $226.9 million for the police department for fiscal year 2022, more than any other city department got and about 18.7 percent of the total city expenses. It’s more than the city budgeted for parks and recreation, fire, economic development, arts and culture, senior affairs and civilian police oversight combined. Source: Albuquerque fiscal year 2022 budget

National trends in crime 

While homicide rates rose in cities across the United States in 2020 and in the beginning half of 2021 compared to previous years, other crimes, like robbery, burglary, and drug offenses dropped during the same period. Overall, violent crime is still trending down from a peak in the early 1990’s.  

  • The homicide rate was 16% higher in the first half of 2021 - 259 more homicides -than the year before. The increase in homicide slowed between the first and second quarters of 2021 Source: Council On Criminal Justice 
  • Overall, violent crime was up by about 3% in 2020 over the previous year, but trending down from a peak in the early 1990s. Source: BBC News
  • Murder rates increased in cities run by Democrats and Republicans, progressive and not. Source: Vox 
  • The rise in homicides has occurred more or less equally in places that adopted reforms and those that rejected them, indicating that the homicide spike by and large took place on the status quo’s watch. Source: The New Republic
    • Criminal justice expert John Pfaff created graphs which depict this trend and shared them here.

 

 






 

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