Shootings  — fatal or otherwise —  were down to a record low in Boston in 2023, while overall crime in the city was up 2% from the year before, according to police data.

“I’m pretty proud of the work we’ve done this year,” Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox told the Herald in an interview. “We are particularly proud that the number of shooting victims is so low this year.”

He attributes the dip in shootings and a higher-than-average homicide solve-rate to enhanced “partnership” with residents of the community, something he hopes the department continues to improve as “now the new year is here and it’s time to start again.”

“We prioritize with an intelligence-led strategy to figure out who are those drivers of violence,” Cox said, adding his department is taking “a holistic view” to countering crime and violence in Boston.

There were 144 shootings last year across the city, 36 fewer than the 180 shootings in 2022, a drop of 20%, and significantly lower than the 197 average shootings over the last five years. Cox said it’s the lowest number of shootings since the Boston Regional Intelligence Center, or the BRIC, started tracking the numbers.

“The law of diminishing returns holds true; our numbers are already really low so it will be hard to further reduce those numbers,” he said. “When you compare it to the Charles Stuart incident time period when we were in the 150 range … the decrease is very important.”

Of the shootings in 2023, 26 victims died, which is six fewer fatal shootings than the year before and five fewer than the five-year average. The 118 non-fatal shootings were also down from both last year’s 148 and the 166 average non-fatal shootings seen in the city over the last five years.

Homicides in general dropped 7.5% from 40 in 2022 to 37 last year. Both are down from the five-year average of 49. Assaults were also down: Non-domestic aggravated assaults dove 13.7%, whereas domestic aggravated assaults had a more modest dip of 3.2%.

The Hub also saw fewer burglaries, with commercial burglary down 13.1% and residential burglary down 10.5%. People are also stealing less from cars, or at least reporting it less, as larceny from motor vehicles is down nearly 11%.

But it’s not all rosy, as higher incidents of other types of larceny, auto theft and violent crimes like rape and robbery — or attempts at either — combined to raise total crime by 2%.

Rape and attempted rape clawed up 4.3% last year, from 186 reported incidents to 194 last year, which are both better than the average of 222 seen over the last five years.

Robbery and attempted robbery — which differs from larceny and burglary in that there is a physical threat to the target — grew 9.8% last year.

Keep close watch on your car, too, as the number of vehicles stolen is on the rise — the previous two years are much higher than the 5-year-average.

The greatest mover of the statistics, however, is the nebulous “other larceny” — as in things stolen not from a motor vehicle — which soared 13.8% last year.

Cox attributes larceny’s rise largely to greater reporting of the crime, which he says is “one of the good things” that happened last year and gives the police better data to combat it in the future.

“The fact is that we need to work with them and come up with some initiatives,” he said, with a stakeholder-centered task force to target the business areas experiencing the most theft. “A small number of people drive the violence in our city … Trying to find out who is driving the larceny and robbery in the city is a major priority.”

And many of those may be driven to crime by need. Cox said the BPD is also partnering with other city services to set up offenders with access to housing or mental health services.

That was what was driving much of the problems in the tent city that sprang up on Atkinson Street in the Mass and Cass area — known as “Methadone Mile.” Last year, the tents finally came down.

“Getting the people who were there housing, moving that core number of folks was a major thing,” Cox said.

The social services prevalent in the troubled area brought people who needed them and, Cox said, brought others from elsewhere or even out of state to take advantage of those services — or take advantage of those who needed those services. The city ordinance that led to the Atkinson Street tent city’s takedown gave the police the tools they needed to keep the area safe.

“The law of diminishing returns holds true. Our numbers are already really low so it will be harder to further reduce those numbers,” Cox said

“We’re not at zero,” Cox said about citywide crime. “One crime is too many. One homicide is way too many.”

While shootings and homicides were down, crime in Boston rose 2% in general in 2023. (Graphic by Jeffrey Walsh / Boston Herald)