Homicide in Chicago — Crime Statistics 2026
866 indexed reports · 0.2% of Chicago incidents · 0 arrests in recent sample.
What is homicide in Chicago?
Homicide is the killing of one person by another. First degree murder (720 ILCS 5/9-1) — killing with intent or knowledge of strong probability of death or great bodily harm — carries 20 years to life in Illinois. Second degree murder, involuntary manslaughter, and reckless homicide cover killings with mitigating factors or recklessness rather than intent.
Chicago PD homicide data records first and second degree murder under IUCR homicide codes; reckless homicide and justifiable homicide are tracked separately. Homicide is the city’s most scrutinized crime statistic, and each report typically corresponds to one victim rather than one incident.
LocalCrimeVault has 866 homicide reports indexed in Chicago — 0.2% of all tracked incidents. The most recent full month on record (July 2026) logged 22 reports, down from 45 in June 2026.
Latest reports
Other offense types in Chicago
Top categories citywide: Theft (101,882), Battery (79,633), Criminal Damage (48,659).
How common is homicide in Chicago?
Homicide accounts for 866 indexed police reports in Chicago (0.2% of tracked offenses). Data comes from City of Chicago Open Data — Crimes.
- How many homicide incidents are in Chicago?
- LocalCrimeVault has 866 indexed homicide reports in Chicago, sourced from City of Chicago Open Data — Crimes.
- What share of homicide reports lead to arrest?
- In our most recent sample of 1 homicide records, 0 (0.0%) include an arrest flag in the source data.
- How often is homicide data updated?
- Chicago crime records sync nightly from the open-data portal. New reports appear on type and incident pages after the sync and deploy pipeline completes.