With four weeks left in 2019, Memphis has already recorded more homicides than all of 2018. The count through November stood at approximately 180, and December, historically one of the more violent months, will likely push the final number somewhere near 190 or above. That makes 2019 the third consecutive year of increasing homicides in Shelby County.
I don’t have a positive spin on this. I’m not going to tell you the numbers are misleading or that the trend is about to reverse. The data doesn’t support either claim. What I can do is lay out what the 2019 patterns look like, where the pressure points are, and what private security companies should be preparing for as we head into a new year.
The Year in Homicides
Memphis recorded 184 homicides in 2018. In 2017, the number was 181. In 2016, it was 228. The slight dip in 2017 and 2018 gave some people hope that the city had turned a corner after the 2016 spike. That hope didn’t survive contact with 2019.
The trajectory changed in the spring. Through March, the city was actually running slightly behind 2018’s pace. April and May changed that. A cluster of shootings in Frayser and Whitehaven during a two-week period in late April pushed the numbers ahead of the prior year, and they never fell back.
Summer was grim. June and July produced the highest monthly totals of the year. Multiple-victim shootings, three or more people hit in a single incident, happened at least six times between Memorial Day and Labor Day. The Shelby County District Attorney’s office was processing cases faster than in previous years, but the volume overwhelmed the progress.
By August, when Robert Hayes published his midyear analysis in this publication, Memphis was clearly on pace to exceed 2018. The second half of the year confirmed it. October was particularly violent, with approximately 20 homicides recorded in a single month.
Where the Violence Concentrated
The geographic pattern in 2019 followed the same contours as prior years, with some shifts worth noting.
Frayser remained the single deadliest neighborhood in Memphis. The area bounded by James Road, Watkins Street, and the Wolf River produced more homicides per square mile than anywhere else in Shelby County. Community organizations like Frayser Exchange have been working on violence intervention programs, and I’ve spoken with volunteers there who are exhausted and underfunded. Their work matters. It isn’t enough without structural support.
Whitehaven saw increased violence along the Elvis Presley Boulevard corridor, particularly between Raines Road and Shelby Drive. Gas stations, convenience stores, and apartment complexes in that stretch accounted for a disproportionate number of aggravated assaults and robberies throughout the year.
Hickory Hill continued its troubling trend. The neighborhood around Knight Arnold and Mendenhall remained a hot spot for both violent and property crime. Auto theft in Hickory Hill was running ahead of 2018 numbers through September. Multiple apartment communities in the area added overnight security patrols during the year.
Orange Mound and South Memphis saw persistent violence, though the per-capita numbers held roughly steady from 2018. The area south of Lamar Avenue between Bellevue and Airways recorded clusters of shootings in June and September.
North Memphis and Raleigh followed Frayser’s pattern at a somewhat lower intensity. The intersection of Jackson Avenue and Hollywood Street area remained problematic throughout the year.
East Memphis, Cordova, and Germantown experienced relatively low violent crime rates, consistent with prior years. Property crime, specifically car break-ins, package theft, and some residential burglaries, was the primary concern in these areas.
Property Crime Patterns
Homicides grab the headlines. Property crime drives security contracts. Here’s what the 2019 data shows.
Auto theft was the standout category. Memphis and Shelby County were on pace for over 10,000 vehicle thefts in 2019, which would be an increase from 2018. Hyundai and Kia models manufactured between 2011 and 2021 without engine immobilizers were targeted disproportionately, a trend reported by police departments nationwide. Security companies running parking lot patrols saw an uptick in demand directly tied to vehicle theft concerns.
Catalytic converter theft exploded in the second half of 2019. The price of rhodium and palladium drove thieves to target trucks, SUVs, and commercial vans parked in poorly lit lots. Apartment complexes and business parks along the Winchester Road corridor were hit repeatedly. One property manager I spoke with said she’d had 14 catalytic converter thefts across her properties between July and November.
Commercial burglary held roughly flat with 2018 levels in most precincts. The exceptions were areas experiencing rapid commercial turnover, where vacant storefronts created opportunities. Summer Avenue between Highland and Graham had several commercial break-ins at unoccupied retail spaces during the year.
Porch piracy and package theft increased sharply in suburban areas during the fall. Cordova, Bartlett, and Germantown all reported increases through MPD and suburban police department data. This category drives HOA security contracts, and several Cordova homeowner associations signed new patrol agreements during the fourth quarter specifically because of delivery theft complaints.
MPD Staffing and Response
Memphis Police Department operated below its authorized strength throughout 2019. Director Michael Rallings maintained that hiring was a priority, and the department ran recruitment events throughout the year. The challenge is familiar to every urban police department in America: competitive pay, demanding work, and negative public perception of policing make recruitment difficult.
The practical effect of understaffing shows up in response times. Non-emergency calls in several precincts routinely exceeded one-hour response windows. For property crimes, response times stretched further. A Hickory Hill business owner told me he waited four hours for an officer after a break-in in October. The officer who eventually responded was professional and thorough. The four-hour gap is the problem.
That gap is where private security lives. Every hour that MPD can’t respond is an hour that a private patrol car, an alarm monitoring center, or an on-site guard is covering. The relationship between public law enforcement capacity and private security demand isn’t adversarial. It’s mathematical. When one contracts, the other expands.
What Security Companies Should Prepare for in 2020
Based on the 2019 patterns, here’s what I think the first half of 2020 will look like for the Tennessee security market.
Demand will stay elevated. There’s nothing in the data suggesting that crime in Memphis will decline significantly in the near term. Property managers and business owners who increased their security spending in 2019 aren’t likely to cut it in 2020. Companies should plan for sustained demand, not a temporary spike.
Armed guard requests will continue increasing. The trend that Robert Hayes identified in his August midyear analysis accelerated through the fall. Clients in high-crime areas want armed personnel. Companies need to expand their armed guard pipelines. TDCI armed registration takes longer than unarmed, so recruitment needs to start early.
Technology expectations will rise. GPS tracking and digital reporting are becoming baseline expectations for commercial contracts. Companies still relying on paper-based reporting and manual patrol verification will lose bids to competitors who offer real-time data. James Mitchell’s coverage of GPS and video analytics in this publication tracks exactly where the market is heading.
Staffing will remain the biggest constraint. Memphis unemployment remains low. Amazon, FedEx, and warehouse operations along the I-40 and I-55 corridors pay $13 to $16 per hour for work that’s safer and more predictable than a security patrol shift in Frayser at midnight. Security companies that don’t raise guard pay in 2020 will lose personnel to these competitors. It’s already happening.
Insurance costs will rise. The claims environment for security companies in Tennessee has worsened alongside the crime trend. Expect general liability premiums to increase 5 to 10 percent for 2020 renewals, with higher adjustments for companies operating in high-crime zones.
Multi-year contracts will become the norm. Property owners want stability. Security companies want revenue predictability. Both sides benefit from 24 and 36-month agreements. Companies that can offer competitive multi-year pricing will capture accounts that annual-bid competitors can’t.
A Difficult Year, Honestly Assessed
Memphis is a complicated city. It has remarkable institutions: St. Jude, FedEx, the National Civil Rights Museum. It has neighborhoods where people raise families, start businesses, and build communities. It also has a violent crime problem that has been getting worse for three years.
I cover security for this publication, and I believe in the work that private security companies do in Memphis. They’re part of the answer. They aren’t the whole answer. Crime reduction requires policing, prosecution, economic opportunity, education, mental health services, and community investment. Security guards don’t fix poverty. They do keep a parking lot safe enough for a nurse to walk to her car after a night shift at Regional One.
The 2019 numbers are a record that nobody wanted. The 2020 outlook depends on decisions being made right now, by the mayor’s office, by MPD, by the Shelby County Commission, by property owners, and by the security companies that serve them.
For the companies reading this: plan for a busy year. Hire early. Train well. Invest in technology. Take care of your guards, because they’re the ones standing in dark parking lots at 3 AM while the rest of us sleep.
That’s what this industry does. And Memphis needs it more than ever.
Amanda Torres is a field reporter for TN Security Review covering community security and crime trends across Tennessee.