Memphis has found ways to make its streets safer. What happens behind closed doors is another story.
“Domestic violence is the hidden part of our violent crime problem because it usually occurs behind closed doors, not in the open,” said Bill Gibbons, president of the Memphis Shelby Crime Commission and executive director of the University of Memphis Public Safety Institute.
Preliminary Tennessee Bureau of Investigation data show that Memphis’ major violent crime rate fell 31.5% during the first half of 2026 compared with the same period last year. Reported domestic violence cases declined only 5.7%.
“The major progress we’ve made on violent crime has not really translated into really major progress on domestic violence,” Gibbons said.
That stubborn gap is the backdrop for a new eight-part Domestic Violence Strategic Plan unveiled July 17 by the Public Safety Institute, which has spent the past year convening law enforcement agencies, prosecutors, courts, health care providers, advocacy groups and nonprofit service organizations.
The plan calls for a renewed rapid-response team for high-risk cases, an electronic system for identifying victims in lethal danger, expanded shelter and housing assistance, greater transparency about what happens to cases, more legal support for victims seeking protection orders and prevention education aimed at children and other at-risk groups.
It also calls for something Memphis once had but lost — a central place where survivors can go for help.
But like the problem it seeks to address, the plan still faces hurdles. Three of its eight strategies still lack organizations willing to take the lead. Several of its most ambitious goals have no identified funding. Timelines and measurements of success are still being developed.
A crime decline that stops at the front door
The plan arrives during one of the sharpest overall crime declines Memphis has experienced in years.
During the first half of 2026, the city’s major violent crime rate — murders, rapes, robberies and aggravated assaults — fell 31.5% from the same period in 2025. Major property crime fell 40.6%, while the broader rate covering 54 categories tracked by the TBI declined 23.8%.
The first-half violent crime rate was 5.2% below the same period in 2011, previously the recent low point, and 45% below the 2023 peak. Every major violent crime category declined from 2025, including murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault.
That distinction matters amid ongoing debate over who deserves credit.
The decline began in 2024 under Mayor Paul Young and Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn “C.J.” Davis, before the federal-state Memphis Safe Task Force arrived in fall 2025. Young also has credited community interventionists and nonprofit organizations that work to mediate conflicts, prevent retaliatory shootings and reach people before violence occurs.
The task force added federal agents, Tennessee National Guard personnel and an enlarged Tennessee Highway Patrol presence to work already underway.
But saturation patrols, fugitive arrests and a visible police presence are built primarily to address violence that happens in public, Gibbons said.
Domestic violence requires a different set of tools: a safe place for victims to sleep, a lawyer in a protection-order hearing, an advocate answering the telephone at 2 a.m. Victims need a judge who knows whether an accused abuser has appeared in court before, or someone willing to help a frightened victim remain involved long enough for a case to be prosecuted.
The latest figures show the scale of the challenge.
During the first half of 2026, Shelby County recorded 7,828 reported domestic violence offenses, including 6,913 in Memphis. The countywide rate fell 5.9%, close to the city’s 5.7% decline.
Shelby County recorded more than 16,000 domestic violence offenses during 2025, including more than 14,000 within Memphis.
The statistical categories are not entirely separate — some domestic violence incidents also are counted among murder, rape and aggravated assault figures — but the trend lines remain strikingly different.
Reported offenses involving firearms fell 35.1% in Memphis during the first half of 2026. Yet firearms continue to be involved in more than half of reported domestic violence aggravated assaults.
During the first three months of 2026, Memphis recorded 205 domestic violence aggravated assaults involving a gun — 51.5% of the total. Firearms were involved in 54.8% of those assaults in 2025 and 50.8% in both 2023 and 2024.
Even those numbers do not capture the whole problem.
“A lot of domestic violence goes unreported,” Gibbons said. “So the reported offenses kind of understate the problem.”
He said underreporting may be especially pronounced among undocumented immigrants who fear that calling police could expose them or their family members to immigration authorities, particularly amid the heightened law enforcement presence in Memphis.
An incomplete scorecard
The new plan also arrives near the end of an earlier promise.
The Memphis Shelby Crime Commission’s 2022-26 Safe Community Action Plan called for creation of a domestic violence task force, development and implementation of a strategic plan and measurable reductions in abuse.
Its targets included a 20% reduction in reported domestic violence and a 30% reduction in domestic violence aggravated assaults involving firearms.
A final score will have to wait until complete 2026 figures are available. But an apples-to-apples comparison of the first six months of 2022 and 2026 offers a revealing snapshot.
During that period, Memphis’ major violent crime rate fell about 40.5%, major property crime fell 46.9% and overall reported crime fell about 30.5% — meeting or exceeding the broader goals established in the five-year plan. Reported domestic violence fell only about 1.4%.
The domestic violence rate climbed after 2022, remained elevated through 2025 and then declined during the first half of 2026, essentially returning to where it stood four years earlier.
The strategic plan promised in 2022 has now been produced. But the broader five-year Safe Community Action Plan is nearing its end without the 20% reduction in reported domestic violence it envisioned.
Gibbons said the concentrated planning process began about a year ago under an agreement between the Tennessee Office of Criminal Justice Programs and the Public Safety Institute.
Representatives from approximately 20 to 25 entities met monthly as part of a Coordinated Community Response, he said.
Dr. Amaia Iratzoqui, research director of the Public Safety Institute, said in a statement that the institute’s role has been to create and sustain the partnerships needed to respond more effectively.
“We hope this strategic plan will guide domestic violence responses to better serve victims and handle their abusers appropriately,” Iratzoqui said.
What falls between the cracks
The final document is notable for how candidly it describes weaknesses in the existing response.
The Lethality Assessment Protocol — a screening tool police use to determine whether a victim faces a high risk of serious injury or death — was not being used consistently across Shelby County. An incorrect version of the form had circulated before being corrected, according to the plan.
The new strategy would move that assessment into an electronic system and make it more readily available to agencies and courts. The goal is to ensure that MPD, the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office and police departments in Bartlett, Germantown, Collierville and Millington use the same form and follow the same process.
The plan also acknowledges problems with the previous Domestic Violence Rapid Response Team. Not every relevant agency participated. The team was centered more on Memphis than the entire county. Members were unclear about how cases were selected, and there was limited public reporting about outcomes.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office has agreed to lead the restructured team.
Gibbons said the federal office has committed to taking cases involving repeat domestic violence offenders found possessing firearms or ammunition and working with local law enforcement to put those cases on a faster track.
“Those are some of your more egregious domestic violence cases,” Gibbons said. “They’ve agreed to just take them all automatically and to rapidly try to move those cases through the system.”
That approach targets a glaring pattern in the court data.
During the first quarter of 2026, Shelby County General Sessions Domestic Violence Court received 1,538 intimate-partner violence cases. Of those, 676 — about 44% — involved defendants who had been arrested previously for domestic violence but had not been convicted. Only 21 involved defendants with both a prior domestic violence arrest and conviction.
The Criminal Court received 251 indicted intimate-partner cases during the quarter. Of those defendants, 32 had a prior domestic violence indictment without a conviction; 10 had both a prior indictment and conviction.
The plan says many cases are dismissed, but local agencies do not yet publicly provide a breakdown explaining why.
Gibbons attributed many dismissals to fear and intimidation. “The dismissal rate in domestic violence cases is very high,” he said. “A lot of that is because the victims end up getting intimidated. They are afraid to move forward and don’t cooperate with the prosecution due to that fear and intimidation.”
Better support, he said, could make victims less vulnerable to pressure and more willing to participate in prosecution.
Another strategy would ask Tennessee lawmakers to allow judges to delay expungement of a dismissed domestic violence charge on a case-by-case basis, possibly for as long as one year. The Crime Commission will lead that effort.
Supporters argue that immediate expungement can erase information that might reveal a pattern of repeat allegations when courts consider bail, protection orders or future cases.
The proposal also raises a due-process concern officials will have to navigate: A dismissed charge is not a conviction, and preserving it may carry consequences for someone who was not found guilty.
Restoring the missing front door
For victims, perhaps the most consequential proposal is creation of a new Family Justice Center offering a central point of access to multiple services, ideally around the clock.
The previous Family Safety Center closed in March 2025, after what Gibbons described as problems with its operation. “It was not operating as well as it should,” he said.
The new version could connect survivors with emergency shelter, longer-term housing, help obtaining orders of protection, legal services, safety planning and even security cameras for their homes.
“Whatever they may need, they could go to this central location and get the help that they need,” Gibbons said.
The new plan says the YWCA plans to operate its lethality-assessment hotline 24 hours a day. The Crime Victims & Rape Crisis Center already maintains a 24-hour rape crisis line. But the larger Family Justice Center remains a proposal without a confirmed lead organization.
Housing is similarly urgent — and similarly unsettled.
The plan calls for money to place survivors in hotels or other temporary accommodations for as long as 10 days, expand transitional housing, help immigrant survivors and repair homes made unsafe by abusers.
It also describes a proposed $750,000 expansion of the YWCA shelter. Renovating its upper level and installing a freight elevator could add six to eight rooms and as many as 24 beds.
No organization has yet agreed to lead the broader housing strategy.
The other unassigned strategy would address an imbalance in order-of-protection hearings, where accused offenders may appear with lawyers while victims often represent themselves. Possible remedies include adding victim advocates and allowing more virtual court appearances.
From plan to accountability
While lead organizations have accepted lead roles in five areas, more are needed.
“We have three to go,” Gibbons said. “We’re working on that to try to make sure that we have that lead entity who’s willing to step up and say, ‘I’ll be accountable for getting this strategy implemented.’”
Each lead will need a team. Each strategy will need funding, deadlines and data points capable of showing whether it worked.
Jennifer Brinkman, director of the Tennessee Office of Criminal Justice Programs, said in a release that the document’s success ultimately will depend on the relationships and trust among the people charged with carrying it forward.
“Every organization has a role to play, but our shared responsibility is much bigger than any one agency,” Brinkman said. “Our goal is simple: all survivors should experience one community working together on their behalf.”
