BATON ROUGE - Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome rang in the new year with her annual State of the City address to a packed room Wednesday Afternoon.

Mayor Broome wasted little time delving into the city's crime statistics for the 2022 year. In the last year, she says there was a 21 percent decrease in homicides within city limits.

That's a drop from 149 homicides in 2021, to 115 in 2022. Mayor Broome attributes the slight decrease to two things: hiring more police officers and paying them more. 

"We're attacking violence at its roots," she said Wednesday, speaking on the city's three-pronged approach to crime. Those three areas of focus are community engagement, mental health and law enforcement. 

A public safety partnership between local law enforcement, the U.S. Attorney's and District Attorney's Office, along with the mayor's office aims to reduce those numbers even further. That partnership was launched in November 2022.

“This plan is a representation of a collaborative public safety strategy that will expand our work in maintaining a safe, hopeful and healthy community," Mayor Broome said.