BALTIMORE — President Donald Trump has threatened to deploy federal troops to the Baltimore because of crime issues, and he called the city a “hellhole” during a Cabinet meeting Tuesday. But Maryland Gov. Wes Moore is touting Baltimore’s sharp decline in violent crime — and taking some credit for it.

It’s a new messaging move for Moore as he persistently fundraises during his ongoing war of words with the president. Until now, most attention for Baltimore’s lower crime rate has focused on Mayor Brandon Scott and City State’s Attorney Ivan Bates.

So what has the governor done to lower crime rates in Baltimore? While Moore has credited his partnerships with city leaders and new gun laws, data and previous reporting in The Baltimore Sun show much of the progress has stemmed from Scott’s policies and Bates’ aggressive prosecutorial approach.

Violent crime is falling nationwide. In Baltimore, homicides are on track to drop by nearly one-third this year compared to last. Moore and Scott have highlighted their focus on violence prevention programs, while Bates’ push to hold violent offenders accountable has reshaped the city’s courtroom strategy.

When asked what state policies the governor could point to for reducing crime in Baltimore, his top spokesman rattled off a list that mainly came down to providing funding for police and prosecutors, as well as revising gun laws.

At the state level, Moore has leaned on early gun policy changes, including a May 2023 law that restricts who can carry firearms and where they can be carried, and legislation tightening gun storage rules and limiting access to carry permits for those on supervised probation or with serious mental illness. Those laws, commonly known as “red flag” measures, are among the governor’s policy contributions to Baltimore’s crime drop.

“Since day one, Governor Moore has been clear that public safety is his number one priority and gone were the days that Baltimore would be neglected and see 300+ homicides year after year,” Moore’s communications director, David Turner, said in a statement to The Sun. “By working in partnership across government, Baltimore is now seeing some of the most impressive drops in violent crime in the nation.”

Turner credited Moore’s collaboration with Scott and Bates as central to the strategy. Scott, he said, has directed the police department toward “constitutional policing designed to solve problems in our communities, not just arrest our citizens,” while Bates has implemented “new structures to quickly assess evidence and body worn camera analysis” — which Bates has described as the “secret sauce” in securing convictions.

Scott focuses on guns

Scott believes Baltimore’s progress is independent of the violence reductions seen nationally in recent years. The mayor has often touted his Comprehensive Violation Prevention Plan and Group Violence Reduction Strategy, which combines law enforcement and advocacy by targeting those who are most likely to be the victims or perpetrators of violent crime.

Scott’s office told The Sun that Baltimore’s violent crime rates have “declined further and faster than the national average” since homicides spiked in the late 2010s — well before other cities struggled with widespread violence during the pandemic. The mayor’s office attributed this dropoff to improved enforcement of gun-related offenses under Scott.

“During Mayor Scott’s tenure, over 12,000 [illegal guns] have been seized including over 1,700 ghost guns,” Scott’s office said, noting the city has taken legal action against gun manufacturers. “This all-of-the-above approach to gun violence has also contributed to Baltimore’s record declines in violence.”

Crime data analyst Jeff Asher told The Sun there’s some merit to Scott’s strategy, though he warned Baltimore will require continuous action to make progress permanent.

“We have really solid evidence that gun violence reduction strategies like that work and tend to provide violence reduction,” said Asher, the co-founder of analytics firm AH Datalytics. “The degree to which those effects are forever [or] they happen and then they wear off I think is a little less widely known.”

Asher added that “enormous investment in social services” under federal initiatives like President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan is a “big-picture explainer” for national crime trends. He said the crime reductions in Baltimore and elsewhere are “bigger than what individual people are doing.”

Bates on accountability

As Baltimore’s top prosecutor, State’s Attorney Ivan Bates also came into office with a focus on addressing gun-related crime. He points to his work on accountability for “repeat violent offenders” with driving historic declines in violent crime.

During an interview with The Sun on Monday, Bates compared his leadership as state’s attorney in 2023-’24 with the 2021-’22 period under Scott and former State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby, whom he did not mention by name. Bates said the total number of violent offenders “held accountable” for their crimes doubled to 2,129 from 1,038 between these periods, which he attributed to his office obtaining more homicide convictions (271 from 159), dismissing fewer cases (475 compared to 749) and accepting fewer pleas (245 to 656).

“Almost half of the people [who are] violent offenders have been removed. And when you look at what’s made crime drop so greatly, it’s that,” Bates said, adding that career criminals were “constantly [getting] over on the system” under Mosby.

Of Bates, Asher said he was “more of a skeptic… that the prosecutor is responsible for changes in crime either up or down” and argued that dismissing cases for first-time offenders “has a tendency to reduce recidivism.”

Despite the improvements, Bates believes Baltimore leaders still have much work to do on “quality of life” issues plaguing the city’s entertainment hotspots, such as Federal Hill and Fells Point. These minor crimes can contribute to how people “always think crime is rising,” according to Asher.

“I think that without a doubt, we’re doing a better job, but I also want to caution that we have to be able to chew gum and walk at the same time,” Bates said. “…When I look around Baltimore City, whether it’s Federal Hill, whether it’s Fells Point, whether it’s [Penn North], whether it’s Park Heights, everyone is screaming that we need more [resources] for quality of life crimes.”

Still, Bates is optimistic about the future of violent crime in Baltimore and believes at least some of the city’s progress is thanks to national trends outside of his control.

“You always have to have a bit of luck in this business as well, and I think you’re beginning to see that,” Bates said.

-------------

©2025 The Baltimore Sun. Visit at baltimoresun.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.