Crime Is Down: What’s Driving It and What Could Reverse It

Crime in the United States is falling for reasons that don’t reduce to a single cause: the pandemic-era disruption that pushed homicides to a 1900s-era peak has eased, a large wave of federal and local public-safety spending landed in 2021 through 2023, everyday transactions have moved away from cash, and drug markets have shifted. Researchers who track the numbers agree the decline is real and broad, and they agree it has no tidy explanation. The FBI’s preliminary 2025 data shows violent crime down an estimated 9.3% and murder down 18.1% from 2024, which the agency called the largest single-year decrease in violent crime and murder since 1937.¹

How Steep the Drop Is

The FBI’s “First Look: 2025 Crime Data,” drawn from more than 17,000 agencies covering 96% of the U.S. population, estimates that murder and non-negligent manslaughter fell 18.1%, robbery 18.5%, rape 7.6%, and aggravated assault 7.2% between 2024 and 2025. Property crime fell an estimated 12.4%.¹

Independent data tracks closely. The Council on Criminal Justice, which monitors 40 large U.S. cities, reported homicides down 21% in 2025 with 922 fewer killings, robbery down 23%, gun assaults down 22%, and carjackings down 43%. Of 13 offense categories tracked, 11 fell, nine of those by 10% or more. Drug offenses were the only category to rise, up 7%.²

Criminologist Jeff Asher, who maintains the Real-Time Crime Index using data from about 560 agencies, estimated that 2025 saw roughly 14,000 murders nationally, the fewest in 50 years.³⁴⁵

Property crime moved the same direction. Motor vehicle theft fell 27% in the Council’s sample, residential burglary 17%, larceny 11%, shoplifting 10%.² The National Insurance Crime Bureau reported vehicle thefts down 23% in the first half of 2025, with 49 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico all reporting decreases. Alaska was the only state to report an increase.⁶

What Is Actually Driving the Decline

Adam Gelb, president of the Council on Criminal Justice, has said the drivers “defy easy explanation” and pointed to a combination of policy shifts, technology, and socioeconomic factors.⁷ Four threads run through the research.

The Pandemic Shock Has Worn Off

In 2020, homicides jumped 31%, the largest single-year increase recorded since 1900.² That spike coincided with COVID-19, social upheaval, and disrupted courts, schools, and community programs. As those disruptions faded, homicides in the Council’s study cities fell 17% from 2023 to 2024 and another 21% from 2024 to 2025, landing 44% below the 2021 peak and 25% below pre-pandemic 2019 levels. Criminologist Alex Piquero, cited by the BBC, has attributed part of the reversal to the resumption of crime-prevention programs, community services, and everyday routines.⁸

A Wave of Public Safety and Community Violence Spending

Federal, state, and local governments poured money into public safety after 2020. Asher, testifying before Congress, reported that state and local government construction spending between 2019 and 2024 rose 88% on police and sheriff facilities, 70% on lighting, and 110% on neighborhood centers. Department of Justice grant funds climbed from $3.26 billion in fiscal year 2021 to $4.5 billion in fiscal year 2023.⁴ The American Rescue Plan directed over $15 billion to public safety through more than 1,000 jurisdictions, funding police hiring, technology, and community violence intervention.⁹

Community violence intervention deploys outreach workers to mediate conflicts and connect high-risk individuals with services. A review of the Cure Violence model found that nearly 69% of evaluated sites showed reductions in shootings or killings.¹⁰ A University of Pennsylvania study of one San Francisco initiative found a 50% reduction in homicides and non-fatal shootings in the district where it operated.¹¹ Baltimore, which posted the largest homicide-rate decrease among 35 major cities between 2019 and 2025, credited planning that paired community health organizations with traditional law enforcement.

Asher noted that the record murder drops of 2023, 2024, and 2025 likely stemmed from decisions and investments made in the 2021–2022 window, meaning the causes precede the visible effects by two or three years.⁴

Fewer Wallets, Less Cash

The Council on Criminal Justice flagged the rise of a cashless society as a likely contributor to declining robbery and theft.² The mechanism has research behind it. A study of Missouri counties found that the shift from paper welfare checks to electronic benefit cards was associated with substantial drops in burglary, larceny, and assault as less physical cash circulated.¹² A study from Uruguay found that banning cash payments at gas stations at night reduced robberies by 25% or more in affected areas, with no displacement to surrounding neighborhoods.¹³ Less cash on the street changes the payoff of street crime.

Drug Market Shifts

Drug overdose deaths fell nearly 24% in the 12 months ending September 2024, driven largely by a drop in fentanyl fatalities.¹⁴ The DEA has reported lower fentanyl potency in counterfeit pills.¹⁵ The research does not draw a direct causal line between overdose trends and violent crime, but changes in drug supply and demand can affect the level of violence tied to drug markets. Drug offenses were the one crime category to rise in 2025, up 7% in the cities the Council on Criminal Justice tracks.²

The Decline Isn’t Only American

Researchers describe a long-term fall in crime across developed nations as a matter of scientific consensus.¹⁶ In England and Wales, violence, burglary, and car crime are down close to 90% over three decades. Youth crime has dropped 50 to 75% across many developed countries in the past 20 to 30 years.¹⁷ The pattern is not uniform: EU data show intentional homicides ticking up 1.4% in 2024 and reported sexual violence rising over the past decade.¹⁸ Still, the broad trajectory suggests forces at work that extend beyond any one country’s politics.

How Solid Is the Data

The FBI’s transition from its legacy Uniform Crime Reporting summary system to the National Incident-Based Reporting System caused real disruptions starting in 2021. In 2022, roughly 32% of agencies did not participate, and about a quarter of the U.S. population was unrepresented in federal crime data. The NYPD and LAPD were absent as late as mid-2023.¹⁹ Participation has recovered — the 2025 preliminary data covers 96% of the population — but the gap years complicate trend lines through that period.

The FBI also revised its 2022 figures after initial release, changing a reported 1.7% decrease in violent crime to a 4.5% increase, a 6.2-point swing that added 1,699 murders, 7,780 rapes, 33,459 robberies, and 37,091 aggravated assaults to the count.²⁰

The National Crime Victimization Survey, run by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, measures crime from the victim’s perspective and captures incidents never reported to police. The 2024 NCVS found that 1.45% of people age 12 or older experienced a violent victimization, similar to 2023.²¹ One concerning finding: youth victimization ages 12 to 17 rose from 1.45% in 2023 to 1.95% in 2024. Reporting to police has also declined for some crimes, with the share of robberies reported to police falling from 64% in 2022 to 42% in 2023.²² Lower reporting can flatter police statistics, though the overall NCVS rate has stayed roughly stable rather than rising.

What Could Reverse the Trend

Federal funding that many experts credit as a contributing factor is being pulled back. In April 2025, the Trump administration rescinded more than $800 million in Department of Justice grants, canceling 373 grants across more than 550 organizations in 48 states. The funds had been established under the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act and supported violence prevention, community outreach, and treatment programs.²³ Recipients that lost funding include the Urban Peace Institute in Los Angeles and LifeBridge Health in Baltimore, an organization involved in that city’s homicide reduction.

Then-Attorney General Pam Bondi described the cuts as eliminating “millions of dollars in wasteful grants” and redirecting focus toward “prosecuting criminals.”¹¹ Researchers counter that community-based programs are more effective at preventing violence than expanded arrests alone. Asher told Congress that construction spending on public safety began to plateau in 2024 and that the grant cancellations create risk for sustaining the decline.⁴

Not every city is riding the trend. Among the 35 cities reporting homicide data to the Council on Criminal Justice, 31 saw declines in 2025; Little Rock, Arkansas, saw a 16% increase. Measured against 2019, Milwaukee’s homicide rate is still 42% higher and New York City’s motor vehicle theft rate is 143% above pre-pandemic levels.² Minneapolis saw a 30% increase in its homicide rate versus 2019, in a city that has also faced scrutiny over mismanaged violence-prevention funds. The Minnesota attorney general filed a lawsuit alleging that a nonprofit called We Push for Peace siphoned more than $6.5 million in violence prevention funding.¹¹ Chicago’s homicides ticked up 6% through the first five months of 2026 compared to the same period a year earlier, even as robberies and burglaries kept falling.²⁴ National trends can mask local variation, and local trajectories can reverse.

Why Most Americans Still Think Crime Is Rising

From 2005 to 2024, an average of 69% of Gallup respondents said crime was higher than the year before, even as crime fell during most of that period.²⁵ In 29 of 32 Gallup measurements since 1989, majorities have said crime in the U.S. is increasing.²⁶

The gap has a shape: people believe their own neighborhoods are safe but the country is dangerous. In October 2025 polling, 49% of Americans rated national crime as “extremely or very serious,” compared with 12% who said the same about their own local area — a 37-point gap that has averaged 43 points since Gallup began tracking it in 2000. Partisanship sharpens the national view (65% of Republicans said national crime was extremely or very serious versus 37% of Democrats) but vanishes at the local level (11% of Republicans, 9% of Democrats).²⁶

Researchers attribute the mismatch to media coverage of violent incidents, political rhetoric that amplifies fear, and low public awareness of official statistics. Household victimization is one of the strongest predictors of both fear and the belief that crime is rising, and economic sentiment matters too: people who feel good about the economy are less likely to say crime is worsening, regardless of the numbers.²⁵

1
FBI. FBI Releases Historic Early Look at Annual Crime Data
2
Council on Criminal Justice. Crime Trends in US Cities Year-End 2025 Update
3
Police Executive Research Forum. Trending – June 2026
4
U.S. House of Representatives. Testimony of Jeff Asher Before the House Judiciary Subcommittee
5
Chicago Police Department. 2025 in Review
6
NICB. Nationwide Decline in Vehicle Thefts Continues Through First Half 2025
7
USA Today. Trump Crime Fact Check State of the Union
8
BBC. US Crime Rate Fact Check
9
Biden White House Archives. End-of-Term Report on Crime
10
National Library of Medicine. CVI Program Effectiveness
11
The Guardian. Trump Federal Funding Cuts Crime
12
National Bureau of Economic Research. Crime Reduction from Cashless Welfare Payments
13
University of Chicago Law Review. Does Paying with Cards Reduce Crime at Stores
14
CDC. CDC Reports Decline in US Drug Overdose Deaths
15
KFF. Opioid Overdose Deaths National Trends
16
Policing Insight. Most Crime Has Fallen by 90 Percent in 30 Years
17
Max Planck Institute. Youth Crime Drop
18
Eurostat. Crime Statistics
19
The Marshall Project. FBI Crime Rates Data Gap NIBRS
20
House Committee on Oversight and Accountability. Comer Demands Transparency From FBI About Quietly Revised Crime Statistics
21
Bureau of Justice Statistics. Criminal Victimization 2024
22
Bureau of Justice Statistics. Criminal Victimization 2023
23
University of Pennsylvania Leonard Davis Institute. Trump Cuts to Violence Prevention Programs Likely to Increase Deaths
24
WTTW. Chicago Sees Fewest May Homicides in Decades
25
Stateline. Americans Views on Crime Often Diverge From Actual Crime Trends Report Says
26
Gallup. Exploring Local Positivity Bias Crime Perceptions