Indianapolis public safety officials in January set a bold goal: finish the year with fewer than 100 homicides.

Many were skeptical. After all, Marion County law enforcement agencies have not seen fewer than 100 slayings in any year since The Star began tracking homicides in 1997.

But the city has a chance of meeting that goal — if the final eight weeks of this year are a little less bloody than November and December 2008, when the city saw 22 deaths.

“We’re proud, but we’re not bragging,” said Robert Vane, Mayor Greg Ballard’s deputy chief of staff. “We remain vigilant no matter what the crime rate is.”

So far this year, Marion County has seen 81 homicides, according to a database kept by The Star. Last year, the city had 101 homicides by the end of October.

The year-end total for 2008 was 123, one less than in 2007. The number of homicides this year likely will fall well below the recent spike of 151 in 2006 and the record of 162 in 1998.

Vane credited changes brought by former Public Safety Director Scott Newman for the city’s improvement. Among the changes: Newman directed beat officers to spend more time finding out what is happening in their neighborhoods, with a goal of preventing crime rather than simply responding to it.

Newman left the post in July so he could devote more time to charity efforts to help people suffering from Parkinson’s disease. Mark Renner now holds the post of interim director.

Ballard considers public safety the city’s top priority, Vane said, and the mayor has placed an emphasis on community policing.

“The mayor has directed district commanders to know their communities and know their neighborhoods,” Vane said. “This has led to greater cooperation between IMPD and these neighborhoods.”

That cooperation, along with hard work from homicide detectives and forensic specialists, has helped reduce the number of slayings, said IMPD spokesman Sgt. Paul Thompson.

Thompson said the department also has put some of the community’s most violent criminals behind bars. He declined to identify them.

“Our investigators believe in the last 18 months that they have arrested several individuals suspected in multiple homicide cases,” Thompson said. “We believe that with these individuals off the street, that possibly influenced those numbers.”

Other strategies included a crackdown on open-air drug markets and efforts to prevent burglaries, which can lead to killings.

Even so, when Forbes.com recently ranked the country’s 40 largest metropolitan areas, Indianapolis ranked as the fifth most dangerous. When it comes specifically to violent crime, Forbes.com ranked Indianapolis worse than Chicago and Philadelphia.

The city’s crime-fighting efforts do merit praise, said community leader Byron Alston, but more must be done to create jobs for young men who return to the community after serving time in prison.

“If more jobs are created and people are given opportunities, a lot of people would change their lives,” said Alston, 43, a former gang member who spent time in prison for robbery and other crimes.

Alston now runs Save The Youth, a program that helps teens, especially those who live on the Eastside and Far Eastside, understand the consequences of bad decisions.

“If we think about how do we forgive some of these guys and give them a chance to get on with their lives, I think we will turn around some of this stuff,” Alston said. "As a black community, we have to build them back up to let them know they can make it.

“We’ve got to put hope back in our young people.”

By the numbers

Marion County is on track to record fewer than 100 homicides in 2009. There have been 81 so far this year. Of those victims, 69 were male, at least 47 were black and 55 died of gunshots. How the pace compares with previous years:

[chart]
|Year|Total|
|2008|123|
|2007|124|
|2006|151|
|1998|162|
[end chart]

— Source: The Star database