Baltimore has seen a substantial increase in robberies this year. Carjackings are up 49 percent across the city, and street robberies are up 70 percent downtown.

The trend worsened toward the end of the year. November was the worst month for carjackings in the city, and October saw the highest number of street robberies.

While residents and city officials often focus on Baltimore's high homicide numbers, which surpassed 300 for the second year in a row, robberies have risen significantly year-over-year. Data from the Baltimore Police Department and Open Baltimore shows that the total number of robberies has increased 16 percent, with 5,228 through mid-December in 2016, up from 4,497 at this time in 2015.

Baltimore police classify robberies in several categories, including carjacking, commercial, residential, and street robberies. Two of those categories — carjackings and street robberies — have risen the most. Carjackings soared to 390 through mid-December this year from 262 at this time in 2015. Street robberies jumped 19 percent to 3,416 this year.

Downtown had the most street robberies by far — 227 incidents, more than the entire Western District. This represents a 70 percent increase in that neighborhood from this time last year. In fact, the number of robberies downtown had held steady at about 140 a year since 2011 before surging this year.

Residential robberies increased 9 percent through mid-December this year, while commercial robberies dropped 7 percent compared to 2015.

—Adam Marton