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Camden’s continuing downward trend in violent crime reflects years of progress that officials and researchers interpret differently.
The Camden County Police Department said the city recorded 12 homicides in 2025, five fewer than in 2024, as violent crime overall fell 6%. The city also recorded its first homicide-free summer in 50 years.
Camden has been experiencing historic declines in crime since 2021. At the start of last year, city officials announced a 55-year low in total crime. Between 2024 and 2025, total crime fell 10%.
“We still have ways to go, but we’re certainly moving in the right direction,” said Camden County Commissioner Director Louis Cappelli Jr., who added that officials would like to get to the point of “zero murders” in addition to “eliminating a lot of the other crime that has taken place.”
Camden joined Philadelphia and Newark in reporting lower rates of crime last year. John Shjarback, associate professor of criminal justice at Rowan University, said the numbers reflect a confluence of national trends and local efforts.
“We’re finally, over the past few years, getting back to prepandemic norms,” he said, adding that the COVID pandemic “decimated” the number of government jobs for social workers and people who worked in victim services and other support areas. “I think it’s that confluence between national-level trends, but also local efforts, things that police departments and community groups, nonprofits are also doing within communities.”
Tim Merrill, a city resident and director of the Imani Hope Center, agreed that a combination of factors have been at play.
“I would agree that policing now is more professional, and that is from community pressures,” he said. “The whole policing reform push in the wake of George Floyd’s crucifixion has bearing on policing that we demand as a community: more professional policing.”
Merrill said there is also a cultural shift from the “heyday of violence in Camden” that, he adds, “has nothing to do with policing.”
“The culture was dominated by promotion of a culture of Black death,” he said, noting the glorification of gang culture and violence in some hip-hop music during that time. “This generation is totally very different because the previous generation got worn out by all that … now they’re talking about crypto and entrepreneurial ventures and things like that.”