By the end of June, Memphis had tallied 160 homicides. That number alone tells you where the year is going.
If the pace holds through December, the city will finish somewhere near 320, putting 2022 in the same grim territory as 2021’s record-breaking 346. For property managers, business owners, and security directors watching these numbers, the question isn’t whether crime is bad. The question is how you plan around a problem that shows no sign of letting up.
Across Tennessee, the story changes depending on which city you’re standing in. Nashville is dealing with an explosion in property crime. Chattanooga can’t shake its gang violence problem. Knoxville, by comparison, looks almost calm. The state as a whole tracks above national averages for violent crime, and the FBI’s latest Uniform Crime Report data confirms what people on the ground already know: Tennessee has a sustained crime problem with no quick fix in sight.
Memphis: The Numbers Keep Climbing
The Memphis Police Department’s midyear data reads like a carbon copy of 2021. Homicides are running at roughly the same clip. Aggravated assaults remain elevated. Carjackings, which became a defining crime category in Memphis over the past two years, continue at an alarming rate. MPD reported over 500 carjackings in the first half of 2022, many involving juveniles.
What’s different this year is the conversation around those numbers. In 2021, there was shock. Memphis hadn’t seen a murder count that high since the mid-1990s. Now there’s something closer to resignation. City officials keep pointing to a nationwide crime surge, and they aren’t wrong. Violent crime did spike across the country starting in 2020. The problem is that Memphis was already worse than most cities before that spike, and the gap hasn’t closed.
The Shelby County District Attorney’s office prosecuted over 3,400 felony cases in the first half of the year. Courts are still working through a massive pandemic-era backlog. Judges are releasing defendants on recognizance because there’s simply no room. Shelby County’s jail has been over capacity for months.
For private security firms operating in Memphis, this translates into sustained demand. Armed guard requests are up roughly 30% compared to the same period in 2020, according to several firm owners I spoke with. Residential patrol contracts, once a niche offering, now represent a growing share of revenue for mid-size companies. Neighborhoods in East Memphis, Cordova, and Germantown that never considered private patrols five years ago are now splitting the cost between homeowner associations.
Nashville: Property Crime Eats the Boom
Nashville’s story is different. The city’s violent crime rate hasn’t spiked the way Memphis’s has. Homicides are up slightly from 2021 at the midyear mark (around 50 versus 45 the prior year), which is concerning without being catastrophic. Where Nashville is bleeding is property crime.
Auto theft jumped 35% in the first six months of 2022 compared to the same window in 2021. Burglaries of vehicles, especially in tourist-heavy areas like Broadway and The Gulch, have become so routine that some downtown businesses stopped reporting them. Retail theft at Green Hills Mall and Opry Mills keeps climbing.
Nashville’s challenge is that the city’s brand depends on tourism and growth. Every negative crime story threatens a carefully cultivated image. Metro Nashville PD has responded by increasing patrols in high-traffic tourist corridors, and the city’s convention and visitors bureau quietly pressured hotels to beef up security staffing.
Private security firms in Nashville report that corporate clients are the biggest growth segment. Companies relocating to Nashville (and there are many) bring security expectations from cities like Chicago, New York, and San Francisco. They expect lobby guards, access control, and executive protection as standard. Tennessee firms that can deliver on those expectations are winning contracts. Those that can’t are losing out to national players like Allied Universal and Securitas, which have expanded their Nashville footprint significantly in 2022.
Chattanooga: Gangs, Guns, and Geography
Chattanooga’s crime problem is concentrated and specific. The city recorded 28 homicides in the first half of 2022, which puts it on pace for a total that would match or exceed 2021’s 42. For a city of roughly 185,000 people, that’s an alarming per capita rate.
Gang activity drives much of the violence. The Chattanooga Police Department has identified several active groups operating in neighborhoods south of downtown, particularly along East Main Street and in the Alton Park and East Lake communities. Shootings cluster in these areas. The pattern has been consistent for years: retaliatory violence between rival groups, often involving firearms obtained through straw purchases or theft.
Hamilton County’s response has included a federal partnership with the ATF and FBI to trace weapons and build cases against gang leadership. The results so far have been mixed. Federal cases take months or years to develop, and the violence continues in the interim.
Private security in Chattanooga is a smaller market than Memphis or Nashville, which creates its own dynamics. Fewer firms compete for contracts, meaning established operators like Walden Security (headquartered in Chattanooga) have significant market control. Smaller firms struggle to break in, particularly for the commercial and industrial contracts that provide steady revenue.
Knoxville: Relatively Quiet, Relatively Worried
Knoxville is the Tennessee success story that nobody’s celebrating. The city’s midyear homicide count sits at 14, roughly in line with historical averages. Property crime is stable. The University of Tennessee campus, which generates its own security market, has had a relatively calm spring semester.
Still, Knoxville’s security industry is feeling the effects of statewide trends. Guard wages have risen 15-20% over the past two years, driven by competition from Amazon fulfillment centers and warehouse operations in Knox County that pay $18-22 per hour. Security firms that were paying guards $12-14 per hour in 2020 now offer $15-17 and still struggle to fill posts.
The city’s downtown revitalization has also created new demand. Market Square, the Old City district, and the developing South Waterfront area all require security presence that didn’t exist five years ago. Knoxville is growing, and growth brings the kind of crime that follows money and foot traffic.
FBI UCR Data: Tennessee Against the Nation
The FBI’s 2021 Uniform Crime Report, released earlier this year, confirmed Tennessee’s position as one of the highest-crime states in the country. Tennessee ranked 5th nationally in violent crime rate, behind Alaska, New Mexico, Arkansas, and Louisiana. The state’s property crime rate ranked 4th.
Those numbers reflect 2021 data, and 2022 isn’t trending better. Nationally, violent crime appears to be plateauing or slightly declining in many major cities. New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago have all reported modest decreases in murders at the midyear mark. Memphis has not.
The divergence matters because it undermines the “national trend” argument that Tennessee officials lean on. If violent crime is a national problem, why are other major cities seeing improvement while Memphis continues to break records? The answer involves factors specific to Tennessee: a permissive firearms environment (the state eliminated its handgun carry permit requirement in 2021), an overwhelmed court system, a depleted police force (MPD is roughly 500 officers below its authorized strength), and deep generational poverty concentrated in specific neighborhoods.
How Private Security Is Responding
The sustained crime environment has pushed Tennessee’s private security industry into what amounts to a permanent surge. Firms that used to plan for seasonal demand increases now operate at elevated capacity year-round.
Three trends stand out at the midyear mark:
Armed guard requests dominate new business inquiries. Five years ago, unarmed guards handled the majority of commercial posts in Tennessee. Now clients want armed officers, and they want officers with law enforcement or military backgrounds. The shift has created a talent bottleneck because armed guards require additional TDCI licensing (the TN-PPS armed registration involves firearms qualification and additional training hours) and the pool of qualified candidates hasn’t kept up with demand.
Technology spending is accelerating out of necessity. Firms that can’t hire enough guards are turning to cameras, license plate readers, and remote monitoring to fill gaps. It’s not a perfect substitute. A camera can’t intervene in a carjacking. Still, clients are buying the combination of reduced human presence and increased electronic surveillance because the alternative is no coverage at all.
Wages are rising across the board. Entry-level unarmed guard positions in Memphis that paid $10-12 per hour in 2020 now start at $14-16. Armed positions range from $18-25 depending on the assignment. Several firm owners told me they’ve lost guards to Amazon, FedEx, and even fast food chains that now pay comparable wages without the risk of getting shot at.
What the Second Half Looks Like
Predicting crime trends is a fool’s errand, and I won’t pretend otherwise. What the data shows is a state where the structural conditions driving crime haven’t changed. MPD remains understaffed. Courts remain backed up. Economic inequality remains extreme, particularly in Memphis’s poorest neighborhoods.
The private security industry will keep growing because the public safety infrastructure can’t keep up. That growth comes with its own problems: more unlicensed operators cutting corners, more untrained guards carrying firearms, more incidents that erode public trust in the industry.
Tennessee’s Department of Commerce and Insurance (TDCI) has signaled increased enforcement activity for the second half of 2022. Whether they have the resources to follow through is another question entirely.
The midyear numbers don’t lie. Memphis is headed for another year north of 300 homicides. Nashville’s property crime surge isn’t slowing down. Chattanooga’s gang problem persists. And the private security firms tasked with filling the gaps left by overstretched police departments are running as fast as they can while the ground keeps shifting beneath them.
Nobody’s predicting this gets easier in 2023.