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This story originally appeared in the Jackson Free Press. It was added to the Mississippi Free Press website in 2025.
Note that any opinions expressed in legacy Jackson Free Press stories do not reflect a position of the Mississippi Free Press or necessarily of its staff and board members.

C-L editorial today: “Jackson’s 30 percent drop in overall crime the first quarter of this year is an encouraging sign that with persistence by the police and public the decline could turn into a trend. All but aggravated assault (up 14 percent), among major crimes, showed a decrease from the same first three months last year, Jackson Police Department figures show. Could this be a trend? Police figures show 17,144 major crimes were reported in 2003, a 3 percent drop from 2002 and the lowest since before 1988. So, if the rest of 2004 continues at this rate, it will show substantial progress.”

“Of particular note should be the 30 percent drop in auto theft. Last year, The National Insurance Crime Bureau Vehicle Theft Study branded Jackson the 14th worst city in the nation for auto thefts, the only city in the South on the list.”

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The Mississippi Free Press produced this story through the MFP Solutions Lab, supported by the Solutions Journalism Network. This series digs into Mississippi’s systemic issues and sheds light on responses to them in other communities. Beyond just reporting on problems, these stories interrogate their causes and inspect potential solutions.

Founding Editor Donna Ladd is a writer, journalist and editor from Philadelphia, Miss., a graduate of Mississippi State University and later the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, where she was an alumni award recipient in 2021. She writes about racism/whiteness, poverty, gender, violence, journalism and the criminal justice system. She contributes long-form features and essays to The Guardian when she has time, and was the co-founder and editor-in-chief of the Jackson Free Press. She co-founded the statewide nonprofit Mississippi Free Press with Kimberly Griffin in March 2020, and the Mississippi Business Journal named her one of the state's top CEOs in 2024. Read more at donnaladd.com, follow her on Twitter and Instagram at @donnerkay and email her at donna@mississippifreepress.org.