Miami’s homicide rate is the envy of other U.S. cities. We researched why | Opinion

The Miami Miracle: No, this is not about one of our sports teams. Instead, it is about the city of Miami’s remarkably low crime trends, especially homicide.

Miami recorded its highest number of murders in 1994, with 124, and its lowest number in both 2024 and 2025, with 27 in each year, according to data from the Miami Police Department. This trend is even more impressive given the city’s increasing population.

Miami’s population was around 350,000 people throughout the 1990s and then increased by over 40% to almost 500,000 by 2020. In contrast, Atlanta, a city of comparable population, recorded 100 homicides in 2025, according the Atlanta Police Department. To be sure, both cities — and many others in the United States — witnessed declining homicide figures during the past few years, but Miami’s is just much lower. For another illustration, Washington, D.C.’s 2025 murder count was 127, the Washington Post reported, with a population only one-fifth larger than Miami’s.

We think that there are three Miami-specific features that can help explain this remarkable trend:

First, one thing that separates Miami from other cities is the makeup of its population. No, not just Cubans, but more generally, the large percentage of immigrants.

Miami is a minority-majority city with most of the population made up by foreign-born people and their offspring. The research literature consistently reports that immigrants commit fewer crimes than native-born Americans and immigrants create a buffer against crime. Miami’s foreign-origin population may be a key factor explaining its low crime rate, especially for violent crimes.

Second, Miami has become an emergent global city comparable to Dubai and Singapore, and has become a regional center of finance and commerce. The label “Capital of Latin America” is much more than hype — it signals a new role that could have not been imagined only a few decades ago. The key elements in this emergent global role are found in the Financial District in Brickell, PortMiami and Miami International Airport. All create jobs in trade and finance increasingly rivaling the traditional hospitality industry in numbers and payrolls.

Third, public safety officials in Miami work collaboratively and with a spirit of collegiality that is not present elsewhere. The Miami Police Department works closely with the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office, as well as neighboring agencies, to share information and resources. The Miami PD also employs useful technology, carries out patrol directed at hot spots of crime, focusing on problematic places and violent people, and does so using a constitutionally and procedurally just policing lens.

A robust “legal wall” has also been created against crime. Projects include the Smart Justice Initiative by the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office and the public defender’s focus on helping people in the justice system with opportunities to turn their lives around.

This does not mean that the hard work is done. To the contrary. Each of those murders represents a lost soul, a child, a friend, a son, a daughter.

We must continue to invest in people and places. We must remember that we need to deal with the teenager who might use a gun tonight to solve a social media beef. We must embrace prevention strategies for the 5-year child who 10 years from now may decide to pick up a gun. Let us continue working together to keep Miami one of the safest cities in America.

Alex R. Piquero is a professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminology at the University of Miami and a former director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics within the U.S. Department of Justice, appointed by President Biden in June 2022. Alejandro Portes is the Howard Harrison and Gabrielle S. Beck professor of sociology at Princeton University and research professor of law at the University of Miami.