Some Big Cities See Homicides Drop in 2008

Jan. 2, 2009— -- Violence-prone Philadelphia and Baltimore might have earned the respective nicknames "Killadelphia" and "Bodymore, Murderland" for good reason, but significant declines in homicides last year have officials in those cities and several others optimistic that they can keep the numbers down in 2009.

Although some of the nation's largest cities, such as New York and Chicago, saw spikes in homicides and others stayed in line with last year's numbers, Houston, Dallas and Detroit were among the cities with improved numbers, which officials attribute to new tactics and an increased police presence in troubled areas.

Baltimore, a city immortalized on the small screen in gritty police dramas "The Wire" and "Homicide: Life on the Street," saw murder statistics drop to a level not seen since the 1980s: a 17 percent dip, from 2007's 282 to 2008's 234.

"When you think about Baltimore, you're not thinking about robberies, you're thinking about murder," Police Commissioner Frederick Bealefeld told ABC News. "That's the crime situation for our city. Until you can demonstrate your ability to do something about murder, you can't get people focused on public safety."

As for the progress seen in 2008, Bealefeld said police aggressively monitored the parolees and probationers they considered to be the most dangerous and arrested them for parole and probation violations.

In addition, he said better cooperation with state and federal law enforcement and the police targeting of gun offenders by, among other things, creating a gun offender registry added to the drop in homicides.

"We really want to make Baltimore known as a very tough place to commit a gun crime," he said.

Cooperation with the state parole agency is key, Bealefeld said. "Culturally, a lot of those agents looked at their job as reforming their clients," he said. "Now, they're starting to shift that culture to say the first obligation is to the community, to keep the community safe. If you have a client who poses a danger to the community, you should be working to get that client in jail."