If you live in Chicago or follow the news here, you’ve probably heard two completely different stories about the city lately. One side says it's a war zone. The other says things are finally getting better. Honestly, the truth is usually somewhere in the middle, buried under layers of police reports and data points. But if you look at a map of homicides in chicago right now, the picture for 2026 is actually looking more hopeful than it has in decades.
We just finished 2025, and the numbers were staggering in a way people didn't expect. The city saw its fewest homicides in 60 years. Think about that. You have to go back to 1965 to find a year when the violence was this low. According to the Chicago Police Department and the Cook County Medical Examiner, homicides dropped about 29% to 30% compared to 2024.
What the Map of Homicides in Chicago Tells Us Today
When you pull up a heat map of the city, the "red" zones are shrinking, but they haven't disappeared. The West Side and South Side still carry the heaviest burden. It’s a reality that's been baked into the city's geography for generations due to disinvestment and systemic issues. But the trend lines are moving.
In the 15th District, which is basically the Austin neighborhood, homicides dropped from 39 in 2024 to 30 in 2025. That’s a real change. It's not just a statistic; those are nine families who didn't have to bury someone last year. The 10th District—covering places like North Lawndale and South Lawndale—saw an even bigger dip, falling from 52 killings down to 26.
"This data demonstrates at least a dozen real lives that we have potentially saved," says Damien Morris, Chief Program Officer of Violence Prevention at Breakthrough.
It’s not just the West Side. You've got neighborhoods like West Englewood seeing homicides plummet by over 50%. Even Auburn-Gresham and South Shore are seeing double-digit percentage drops. If you were looking at a physical map with pins on it, you’d see a lot more empty space in 2025 than you would have in the "spike" years of 2020 or 2021.
Why the Numbers are Dropping
Is it just better policing? Probably not. Superintendent Larry Snelling and Mayor Brandon Johnson have been pushing a "holistic" approach. That’s a fancy way of saying they’re trying to fix the problems that lead to crime before the crime happens.
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- Community Violence Intervention (CVI): This is a huge one. Groups like BUILD in Austin and Breakthrough in East Garfield Park are putting "Peacekeepers" on the street. These are people from the neighborhood who know the players and can mediate a beef before someone pulls a trigger.
- Detective Promotion: The city promoted 50 more detectives recently. More detectives mean more cleared cases. When people feel like they can't get away with it, the cycle of retaliation slows down.
- Mental Health and Youth Jobs: There's been a massive push to get kids working during the summer and opening up mental health clinics that were closed years ago.
It's a "both/and" situation. You need the cops to catch the "bad guys," but you need the community to keep the "good kids" from turning into them.
The Reality of the "Safe" Neighborhoods
If you look at the map of homicides in chicago in the downtown or North Side areas—like Lincoln Park or Lakeview—the pins are few and far between. But that doesn't mean those areas feel "safe" to everyone. There was a shooting in River North right before New Year's 2026 that left one man dead and three others wounded.
Even when the citywide numbers are down, a single high-profile event in a "safe" area can make the whole city feel on edge. This is the "perception vs. reality" gap. Statistically, you are safer in Chicago today than you have been at almost any point in your life if you're under 60 years old. But fear isn't always rational.
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Digging Into the Demographics
The Cook County Medical Examiner’s data for 2025 gives us the cold, hard facts of who is dying. It’s mostly men—83% of the victims. And it’s overwhelmingly Black and Latino residents, who make up 73% and 18% of the deaths, respectively.
- Total Homicides (2025): 416 (lowest since 1965)
- Shootings: Down 35%
- Victims under 18: 57 (still too many, but declining)
- Gun-related: 448 (includes some cases outside city limits but within the county)
The most heartbreaking part of the map? The 15 kids under the age of 10 who were lost to violence across the county last year. That’s the number that keeps community leaders up at night, regardless of how "good" the overall percentages look.
How to Track This Yourself
You don't have to wait for the 6 o'clock news to see what's happening. The Chicago Data Portal is actually pretty great. They have a "Violence and Victimization" dashboard that lets you filter by neighborhood, police district, or even your specific ward.
If you're more into visual trackers, the Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune usually maintain their own homicide maps that are updated almost daily. They often include names and photos, which reminds us that these aren't just data points on a spreadsheet.
What's Next for 2026?
We’re a few weeks into 2026, and the goal is to keep the momentum. The city is planning to expand the 24/7 crisis response strategy, which aims to get case managers and victim advocates to a scene within 30 minutes of a shooting. The idea is to stop the "revenge" shooting that usually happens a few hours later.
Honestly, the map is changing because the strategy changed. We're moving away from just "locking everyone up" to a model that involves the people who actually live on the blocks. It’s working, but it’s fragile.
Next Steps for Staying Informed:
- Visit the Chicago Data Portal: Check the "Homicide Map" for your specific neighborhood to see the 2025-2026 trends.
- Follow CVI Groups: Look up organizations like READI Chicago or Breakthrough to see how they’re spending violence prevention grants in your area.
- Attend CAPS Meetings: Go to your local Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy meeting. It’s where you can talk directly to the commanders about the specific "hot spots" you're seeing on your block.
- Support Youth Programming: The data shows that when kids have jobs and safe places to go after 3:00 PM, the pins on that map start to disappear.