As Honolulu Police Chief Joe Logan prepares to retire this month, he has touted an overall reduction in crime. 

But what do the numbers say? And can police take full credit for declining crime rates? 

Violent crime was down 24% from 2019 to 2024, according to statistics on the department’s data dashboard. Violent crimes include aggravated assault, murder and non-negligent manslaughter, robbery and forcible sex offenses. 

The numbers were down in all categories except murder and non-negligent manslaughter which rose 82% over that five-year time period.

The increase was largely driven by a spike in violence in the Westside’s District 8, which stretches from ʻEwa to Kaʻena Point. Murders more than doubled there over the last five years. 

Last year was particularly deadly with 12 murders reported. That includes four deaths that resulted from a mass shooting on Waiʻanae Valley Road over Labor Day weekend. Hiram Silva shot and killed three women at his neighbor’s home before one of the home’s residents fatally shot Silva. 

By comparison, there were five murders reported in the district in all of 2019. 

Murders also increased significantly in District 7, which is East Honolulu from Punahou Street to Makapuʻu Point. There were six murders reported there last year, up from one in 2019. 

The only other district that had an increase in murders and non-negligent manslaughters since 2019 was District 3, which is the Pearl City area from Red Hill to Village Park and Waipahu. The increase there was much smaller from two murders in 2019 to three last year. 

While statistically the increases are large, the raw numbers are relatively small compared to other violent crime categories. Overall, murders on Oʻahu jumped from 17 in 2019 to 31 in 2024, according to the HPD data dashboard. 

“Of course it matters very much to the people who are affected, but statistically speaking we can reach statistical significance with one or two extra homicides a month,” said Ashley Rubin, an associate professor of sociology with the University of Hawaiʻi, “whereas if we’re talking about assaults, one or two extra assaults is barely going to show up in the data.” 

Aggravated assaults on Oʻahu decreased 19% over five years with 238 fewer assaults reported in 2024 than in 2019. An aggravated assault is an attack on another person with the intent to cause severe injury and often involves the use of a weapon, according to HPD. 

Property crimes have dropped even more dramatically than violent crimes and were down 37% last year compared to 2019. The property crimes tracked by HPD include arson, burglary, forgery, fraud, motor vehicle theft, larceny, property damage and stolen property. 

But even though crime is down in nearly every category, Hawaiʻi residents still say they feel unsafe, Rubin said. 

A Civil Beat column written by Rubin and two of her colleagues cites a survey showing 63% of respondents believed crime was getting worse in ​​Hawaiʻi. Rubin is a principal investigator with the Hawaiʻi Crime Lab, a group that researches crime rates, sentencing and penal reform.

Rubin said that’s largely due to media coverage of the most scary and heinous crimes which stick with people more than positive news about declining crime rates. 

People’s perspectives on crime can also be influenced by what they see around them, she said. For example, walking by homeless encampments or seeing kids smoking weed on the street can lead some to believe crime is higher than what the data show.  

“I went through this myself when I started to really focus on the local crime news for Honolulu and I was like ‘oh my god, the crime just sounds out of control,’” she said. “Then I looked at the data and I was like, ‘oh wow this really isn’t that bad.’” 

Honolulu County’s violent crime rate is fairly on par with that of similarly sized cities like Orlando, Florida, Aurora, Colorado, and Wichita, Kansas, and much lower than the rates in Cleveland and New Orleans, according to an analysis by Rubin published last year. 

During a recent police commission meeting, Logan attributed Honolulu’s low crime rate to the work of his officers, who he said are preventing crime despite hundreds of unfilled positions in their ranks. He did not elaborate on what specifically they are doing to prevent crime and the commissioners didn’t ask him.

Officer vacancies in the department rose from 253 in 2019 to 457 this year. 

One commissioner, Laurie Foster, even suggested the department reevaluate how many positions it needs to keep open. 

“I’m not sure we actually need that many officers because we’re doing a very good job with a lower amount of officers,” she said. 

Honolulu Police Maj. Paul Okamoto, who is assigned to the chief’s office, said even with rising vacancies, the department has reallocated officers to patrol and offered overtime to keep up officer presence on the roads. Some districts have even added beats in recent years, he said.

He also said the department’s increased use of social media as well as its hosting of community events, such as Coffee with a Cop, have helped deter crime by building trust and getting more cooperation from the public.

“When they see that they can trust us an that we’re responsive to some of their longstanding problems, I think they’re more willing to engage with us and report suspicious activity,” he said.

But Rubin said it’s more likely that other factors unrelated to policing are influencing the crime rate.

“Policing and punishment can be effective and they’re really important,” she said, “but a lot of times, crime rates are actually much more a function of major social trends and things that, to some extent, are kind of out of our hands.” 

Overall crime nationwide has been declining since the 1990s largely because of changing social behaviors, she said. For example, violent crime committed by juveniles began to decrease more substantially around 2008 as kids started staying home more and living with their parents longer. 

“We just have so many more things at home,” she said. “We have social media and we have the internet, we have streaming movies so you don’t even have to go to a movie theater. So a lot of the kind of conditions that encouraged crime in the past have changed over time.” 

“Data Dive” is supported in part by the Will J. Reid Foundation.