“When Crime Goes Unsolved” examines declines in reported violent and property crime while identifying persistent challenges with homicide, clearance rates, and public-safety capacity
RIDGELAND, Miss – Empower Mississippi today released “When Crime Goes Unsolved: What the Data Reveals About Mississippi’s Public Safety Challenge,” a new report establishing a baseline of key public safety indicators across Mississippi, including crime trends, clearance rates, corrections, recidivism, forensic capacity, and public safety data. The report identifies encouraging signs of progress, including declines in reported violent and property crime, while highlighting persistent challenges and gaps in the data needed to measure public safety outcomes.
Mississippi’s reported violent crime rate has fallen 17.6% since 2021 and remains well below the national rate, while reported property crime has declined by more than 16%. At the same time, Mississippi continues to have one of the nation’s highest homicide rates, and many serious crimes reported to law enforcement go unsolved. In 2024, Mississippi law enforcement agencies reported clearing 56% of homicides, 35.1% of aggravated assaults, 28.1% of robberies, and 17.5% of rapes.
“Every Mississippian should be able to feel safe where they live, work, worship, and raise a family,” said Grant Callen, Founder & CEO of Empower Mississippi. “There is real progress documented in this report that deserves to be recognized, but there is also more work to do. When serious crimes go unsolved, victims and families can be left without justice, dangerous offenders may remain in the community, and trust in the public-safety system suffers. Building safer communities means making it more likely that serious crimes are solved, wrongdoing is held accountable, and people who have paid their debt to society have a meaningful opportunity to rebuild their lives.”
Four major priorities emerge from Empower’s research:
- Strengthen accountability for serious crime. Public safety depends on increasing the likelihood that people who commit serious offenses are identified, apprehended, and appropriately punished.
- Improve capacity and coordination. Investigators, forensic specialists, prosecutors, courts, corrections officials, and other parts of the public-safety system must work effectively together. In March 2026, the Mississippi Forensics Laboratory reported 6,507 pending cases, with much of the backlog concentrated in drug analysis and firearms.
- Support effective rehabilitation and reentry. Among people released from Mississippi Department of Corrections custody in fiscal year 2021, 39.1% returned to custody within 36 months. Effective rehabilitation and reentry can help people who have served their sentences successfully return to their communities and reduce future crime.
- Build better public-safety data. Gaps and inconsistencies in crime and criminal justice data make it harder to understand where problems exist, direct resources effectively, and measure whether policies are working.
The report emphasizes that Mississippi’s public-safety challenges cannot be solved by any one agency, policy, or institution. Safer communities require a system that takes serious crime seriously, protects victims, holds people accountable, supports effective law enforcement, and creates pathways for people who have served their sentences to work, contribute, and rebuild.
“When Crime Goes Unsolved” is intended to provide policymakers, public-safety professionals, and community leaders with a clearer baseline for understanding Mississippi’s challenges and measuring progress toward safer communities.
The full report is available HERE.
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About Empower Mississippi
Founded in 2014, Empower Mississippi is a solutions center working to make the American Dream a reality for every Mississippian. We work to remove barriers to opportunity and advance solutions that empower people to earn success, build strong families, contribute to their communities, and live meaningful lives. Learn more at empowerms.org.
Send media inquiries to:
Dr. Kristin Vance Richards
Empower Mississippi
Kristin@empowerms.org
