Through the first six months of 2019, Memphis recorded 99 homicides. That’s ahead of the pace that produced 184 killings in 2018, and it puts the city on a trajectory nobody at City Hall wants to talk about publicly.
The Commercial Appeal reported in June that Memphis was tracking toward its worst year since 2016, when the city hit 228 homicides. MPD Director Michael Rallings acknowledged the numbers in a press conference on June 18th, pointing to gang-related violence in specific precincts and pledging additional resources to those areas. The details of that response, and whether the resources have actually materialized, depend heavily on which precinct commander you ask.
I’ve spent three weeks pulling data from MPD’s CrimeMapper tool, reviewing Shelby County District Attorney reports, and talking with patrol supervisors at four private security companies operating in the affected areas. The picture that emerges is straightforward: certain neighborhoods are getting worse, the clearance rate remains troubling, and private security is filling gaps that public law enforcement can’t cover.
The Numbers
Memphis tracks crime using the Uniform Crime Reporting system. Part 1 crimes include homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft, and arson.
Through June 30, 2019:
Homicides stood at 99, compared to 86 at the same point in 2018. That’s a 15 percent increase year-over-year.
Aggravated assaults were running roughly flat with 2018, around 4,200 through midyear.
Auto thefts had jumped noticeably, particularly in the Hickory Hill and Whitehaven precincts. Shelby County saw approximately 4,800 vehicle thefts in the first half of the year.
Burglaries showed a slight decline from 2018 levels. Property crime overall was mixed. Some categories down, others steady.
The homicide number is what gets the headlines, and for good reason. Nearly 40 percent of Memphis homicides remain unsolved after one year. That clearance rate puts Memphis below the national average of about 62 percent. For families in Frayser and Orange Mound, that number isn’t abstract. It means the person who killed their relative is probably still in the neighborhood.
Precinct Breakdown
The violence isn’t distributed evenly. It never is.
Precinct North (Frayser, Raleigh): This area continues to account for a disproportionate share of violent crime. The intersection of James Road and New Allen has been a persistent trouble spot. Frayser alone recorded 14 homicides through June. Community groups on Thomas Street have organized weekly walks, but the volunteers I spoke with said they feel outpaced by the problem.
Precinct South (Whitehaven, Parkway Village): Homicides here were running close to 2018 levels, around 16 through midyear. The Elvis Presley Boulevard corridor between Shelby Drive and Brooks Road has seen a concentration of aggravated assaults. Multiple gas stations along that stretch have added private security guards this year.
Precinct Tillman (Hickory Hill, Southeast Memphis): Auto theft is the dominant concern. The Knight Arnold and Mendenhall intersection area has been hit especially hard. Apartment complexes along Winchester Road are contracting overnight security patrols at rates I’m told are 20 to 30 percent higher than last year.
East Precinct (Cordova, Bartlett border): Relatively lower violent crime rates, but property crime, particularly package theft and vehicle break-ins, has pushed homeowner associations to explore private patrol services. Three HOAs in the Cordova area signed new security contracts between January and June.
Downtown/Midtown: MPD has maintained a visible presence around Beale Street and the medical district. The number of off-duty officers working paid details for downtown businesses held steady from 2018. Tourist-facing areas get attention. Side streets in Midtown between Union and Madison have seen less coverage.
How Private Security Is Responding
When public safety can’t keep up, private money fills the gap. That dynamic is playing out across Memphis right now.
I surveyed operations managers at six security companies with active contracts in Shelby County. Four agreed to speak on background about their 2019 contract activity. The pattern was consistent.
Demand is up. All four companies reported increased inbound requests compared to the first half of 2018. Two companies said they’d added new commercial accounts in Hickory Hill specifically because of the crime data. One company took on three new gas station contracts along Elvis Presley Boulevard between March and May.
Guard recruitment is struggling. This is the bottleneck. Memphis unemployment was sitting around 4.5 percent in June, which is good for workers and terrible for security companies trying to hire at $10 to $12 an hour. Every company I spoke with had open positions they couldn’t fill. One operations manager on Summer Avenue said he’d been short four guards for two months and was burning out his existing staff with overtime.
Armed guard requests are increasing. Several companies told me that clients who previously used unarmed guards are now asking about armed options. The cost difference is significant, armed guards run $18 to $28 per hour compared to $12 to $18 for unarmed. Licensing requirements through TDCI are stricter for armed personnel, which means longer onboarding times and smaller candidate pools.
Contracts are getting longer. Companies said they’re seeing more 24-month and 36-month contracts instead of annual renewals. Property owners dealing with persistent crime want stability. They don’t want to rebid every twelve months. That shift benefits established operators like Phelps Security, which has been on Park Avenue since 1960 and has the kind of track record that makes a three-year commitment feel safe to a property owner.
The Clearance Problem
Let me come back to that 40 percent unsolved number because it matters for the security industry in ways that aren’t immediately obvious.
When homicides go unsolved, community trust in law enforcement erodes. When trust erodes, people stop calling the police. When people stop calling the police, they start calling security companies. Or they start calling nobody, and the problem compounds.
The relationship between MPD’s clearance rate and private security demand isn’t something you’ll find in a research paper. It’s something you hear when you sit in a property manager’s office on Winchester Road and listen to her explain why she doubled her security budget this year.
“I called 911 about a break-in at one of my units in February,” she told me. “The officer showed up four hours later. Four hours. My tenant had already cleaned everything up. Nothing came of it.”
She signed a security patrol contract in March.
Director Rallings has defended MPD’s response times, citing staffing challenges. MPD was authorized for around 2,100 officers in 2019 but was operating below that number. The department has been running recruitment drives, including a billboard campaign on I-240, to attract new applicants. Whether that translates to faster response times in Hickory Hill by year’s end remains to be seen.
What the Data Says About the Second Half
Crime in Memphis follows seasonal patterns. Summer months typically see the highest rates of violent crime. July and August tend to be the peak, with a gradual decline through fall before a smaller spike around the holidays.
If 2019 follows historical patterns, the second half should see slightly lower monthly homicide counts than May and June produced. That doesn’t mean the annual total will be acceptable. Based on the first-half trajectory, Memphis is looking at somewhere between 180 and 200 homicides for the full year. The exact number will depend on whether the summer spike is worse than average, and whether MPD’s targeted enforcement in high-violence precincts produces measurable results.
For private security companies, the operational takeaway is clear. Second-half planning should assume that demand will remain elevated through December. Staffing pipelines need to start producing candidates now, not in October. Companies running patrols in high-crime precincts should be reviewing their incident reporting protocols and making sure their guards know what to do when they encounter an active crime scene. At the current pace, some of them will.
The Bigger Picture
Memphis isn’t alone in this. Nashville, Chattanooga, and Knoxville have all seen violent crime fluctuations in 2019, though none at the same per-capita rate as Memphis. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation will release statewide 2019 data in mid-2020, and those numbers will likely show the same pattern: pockets of intense violence in urban cores, moderate changes in suburban areas, and rural communities largely tracking flat.
For this publication, the focus stays on what the numbers mean for the people providing security in these areas. The companies, the guards, the property managers making decisions about budgets and contracts.
Memphis is a city with real problems and real people working to address them. The crime data is sobering. It should be. And the private security industry’s response, hiring more guards, extending patrols, adopting GPS tracking and video analytics, is a market adjustment to a public safety gap that has been widening for three consecutive years.
Nobody in this industry expects the gap to close on its own. The companies that recognized that fact early are the ones winning contracts right now.
Robert Hayes is a senior reviewer at TN Security Review covering crime data, market analysis, and industry trends across Tennessee.