Washington, Los Angeles, Miami, Philadelphia, Phoenix and Las Vegas all reported a drop in killings as America’s murder rate continued its decline.

But several troubled cities bucked the trend, including Boston, Detroit, Baltimore and St Louis, which saw a 56 per cent surge because of drug violence.

Experts attributed the continuing decline to tough policing and an ageing population. But James Fox, a professor in criminal justice at Northeastern University, said: “There’s a tendency with rosy statistics in recent years to think this problem has been solved. Crime can’t be solved. It can only be controlled.”

Chicago, the nation’s murder capital in 2003 with 598 homicides, saw the number fall to a preliminary total of 447. It was the first time that the city has ended a year with fewer than 500 murders since 1965, when there were 395.

Police claimed credit for targeting the city’s street gangs. An extra 180 officers from the Targeted Response Unit were despatched every night to areas plagued by gang violence. As a result, killings fell most sharply in the most dangerous neighbourhoods, with murder down 55 per cent in one district and by 52 per cent in another.

The Chicago police also revived their gang intelligence unit, which had been disbanded in the late 1990s because of corruption. The department plans to add new anti-crime strategies this year, such as installing technology that can pinpoint the occurrence of gunshots around the city. “We’re never going to eliminate all crime. We have a city of 3 million people,” said Philip Cline, the city’s police superintendent,.

“But we are going to do our best to keep working on the gangs that are responsible for the majority of our violent crime.”

Chicago and other cities have learned from the “zero tolerance” policing tactics pioneered by New York, which saw its murder rate fall from a peak of 2,245 during the crack cocaine epidemic of 1990 to 571 last year — its lowest since the 549 homicides in 1963.

This dramatic fall in violent crime has transformed the Big Apple. In 1992, for instance, almost 40 minicab drivers were murdered. The city responded by requiring a bullet-proof partition or a digital surveillance camera in every cab. Not a single minicab driver has been killed for almost two years.

New York continues to develop new approaches. In some tough neighbourhoods, for instance, police are teaching restaurant deliverymen to remain outside when they give customers their food, rather than entering their homes.

Among big cities, the sharpest rise in murders was in St Louis, where they rose to at least 114 from 74 in 2003. Police blamed drug violence, but noted that last year’s total was still the third-lowest in 40 years.

Boston saw killings rise to 62 from 41 last year — a 50 per cent increase, but still well below the city’s peak of 152 during the gang wars of 1990.

Detroit, which began 2004 with a rash of killings that drove the murder rate up 50 per cent, ended the year with 384 murders, up from 366. Baltimore, which has had one police commissioner forced out and another dismissed, saw a slight increase in killings to 278, from 271 in 2003.

KILLING ZONES

New York: 571 (down 26 on previous year)

Los Angeles: 511 (down 5)

Chicago: 447 (down 151)

Baltimore: 276 (up 7)

Washington: 198 (down 50)

St Louis: 114 (up 40)

Boston: 62 (up 21)

Also down: Philadelphia, Miami and Las Vegas

The record: New York’s 2,245 in 1990

New York’s murder rate per person: 6.9 per 100,000, making it it the safest large city in America

London’s murder rate per person: 2.4 per 100,000

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