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Prince George's County may finish the year with fewer than 100 homicides, a feat that has not been achieved since 2000.

As of Nov. 27, 81 homicides had been recorded in the county this year, a 25 percent decrease from the 108 homicides recorded from the same period last year.

"This is huge," said Lt. Col. Kevin Davis, deputy chief for the county police department. "I can't remember when this happened before. It's been a while."

According to department statistics, the county's annual homicide count usually stays between 120 and 130 homicides each year. The last exception was in 2000, when 67 homicides were reported.

Police confirmed that numbers are lower so far this year but hesitated to say if they would finish the year without breaking 100. Police Chief Roberto Hylton instructed officers to avoid discussing the possibility until after Christmas.

"I've got some folks over here that are concerned that we still have a month to go, and it is the holiday season," said Maj. Andy Ellis, police department spokesman. "We're just not ready to speak about the homicides and where the numbers are at this point."

About eight to 10 homicides tend to occur in December, according to department statistics.

Police declined to give any reasons for the decline this year in homicides, though Davis said regional task forces targeting gang activities may be helping. Two weeks ago, federal prosecutors indicted 31 men allegedly associated with the Latin Kings gang for attempted murder, assaults and other criminal activities. Many of the group's alleged crimes took place in Langley Park.

Davis, who supervises the county's investigative units, credited county detectives for the progress in reducing and tackling homicides, noting that case closure rates are also up. So far this year, about 55 percent of new homicides have been solved, a 4 percent increase from 2008 in closed cases. When arrests of suspects in cases that happened before 2009 are included, the closure rate for the year is 75 percent.

The decline in homicides, as well as crime overall, is part of a national trend, said Gary LaFree, a professor of criminology at the University of Maryland, College Park.

"As a country, we're where we were in the early 1960s," said LaFree, who said the fading of the crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980s and early 1990s is a partial cause of the crime drop.

Crime nationwide also runs against conventional wisdom that illegal activities go up in bad economic times, he noted.

"What's strange is that we're in a bad economy, but we haven't seen it go up," he said. "The last time I remember this happening was the Great Depression."

The high number of homicides and other crimes in Prince George's County has been largely attributed to its close proximity to some of the higher crime areas of Washington, D.C., LaFree said.

"P.G. County is an interesting case," he said.

In Washington, D.C., there have been 133 homicides reported so far this year, a 22 percent decline from last year. In Baltimore city, the only Maryland jurisdiction that tends to have a higher homicide rate than Prince George's, 210 homicides have occurred so far this year, three fewer than in 2008.

In neighboring Montgomery County, there have been 12 homicides reported so far this year, seven less than the total for 2008.

The 67 homicides in 2000 marked the lowest homicide rate in Prince George's in 20 years, according to department statistics. The highest rate was in 2005, when 151 homicides occurred. Since 1989, yearly homicides have only stayed below 100 three times, in 2000, 1999 and 1997.

Russell Butler, director of the Maryland Crime Victims Resource Center, said he was pleased with the decline but noted that victims still lose relatives, livelihoods and security.

"It sounds good, but it's obviously almost 100 too many," said Butler, whose group offers counseling and other help for crime victims and their family members. "Crime doesn't go away. The numbers may go down, but the suffering is still there."