2025 Year in Review: A Remarkable Drop In Crime
Crime almost certainly fell an enormous amount in 2025.
The number of crimes reported to law enforcement agencies almost certainly fell at a historic clip in 2025 led by the largest one-year drop in murder ever recorded — the third straight year setting a new record — and sizable drops in reported violent and property crime. This assessment will not be confirmed until the FBI releases formal estimates for 2025 sometime in the second half of next year, but it is based on a variety of sources all saying the same thing.
My main source for the assessment is the Real-Time Crime Index, a collection of monthly crime data from hundreds of agencies nationwide. The most recent RTCI sample consists of 570 law enforcement agencies with reporting through October 2025. The sample covers around 115 million people and historically has accounted for around half of the murders in the United States in a given year.
The RTCI through October has only been off from the FBI’s year-end murder change estimate by around 1.5 percentage points on average since 2018 and it has been even closer on average relative to the year-end FBI estimates for violent and property crime1. In other words, the percentage points will change a bit, but we have sufficient information now to say what next year’s FBI crime estimates will say with fairly good confidence.
The drop in crime in 2025 continues a trend that began in 2023, accelerated in 2024, and likely became historic in 2025. A roughly 20 percent drop in murder in 2025, as is suggested by the current data, would be by far the largest decline ever recorded, eclipsing the decline in 2024 — currently pegged at -15 percent by the FBI but that’s subject to a likely upward revision next year.
Other types of crime are seeing large reported declines as well. These drops range from a nearly 23 percent decline in motor vehicle thefts in the RTCI to a smaller 9 and 8 percent drop in theft and aggravated assault respectively according to the RTCI. These numbers won’t be finalized for a while, but they paint the picture of large drops in crime even if the current numbers potentially overstate that drop by a small bit.
The drop has been felt everywhere with sizable declines in every crime type across every population group that is measured by the RTCI.
Measuring murders per year through October in the RTCI sample really highlights just how far murder has fallen in 2025 from the immediate post-COVID highs and accentuates the drop this year even relative to pre-pandemic levels.
The drop in murder in 2025 is remarkably widespread geographically as shown on the below map highlighting the change from 2024 to 2025 in every agency with data in the RTCI through at least September. There are a few red arrows indicating increases, but they’re massively dwarfed by all the blue arrows.
The RTCI is not the only data source pointing to a dramatic drop in murder in 2025. Shootings are down 17 percent in the Gun Violence Archive with a 13 percent decline in fatal shooting victims this year compared to last. The GVA correlates very strongly with the RTCI, FBI, and CDC providing additional confidence in an extremely large drop in murder this year.
Additionally, the CDC’s homicide counts are available through May though the more recent data is preliminary and likely an undercount by a bit. Still, the CDC has homicides down 15.4 percent through May 2025 and that sizable drop is still true even if you limit yourself to data through March to account for the incompleteness of the newer data.
Other independent groups that measure crime in slightly different ways are also showing the same thing. The Council on Criminal Justice and Major Cities Chiefs Association both point to similarly large drops in the crime types they measure including huge drops in murder.
Finally, I took a city sample of the 30 cities that reported the most murders in 2024. I got data for 29 of the cities through November (Phoenix through September) which enables a quick look at where the larger sample might head through later in the year than the RTCI currently has. That sample had murder down nearly 20 percent through November which seems to make this year’s enormous decline a fait accompli.
The drop in crime in 2025 is very real and very large. Just because crime is dropping most places does not mean that crime is dropping everywhere. There are cities that saw large increases in murder in 2025 though there are no agencies in the RTCI sample with an increase of 15+ murders this year from last. There are 30 agencies, by contrast, with a decline of 15+ murders over that span.
Looking at individual cities highlights the historic nature in the drop in murder. New Orleans is on pace for the fewest murders since 1970. New York City reported the fewest shootings ever recorded (though the start of recording is probably the 1990s). Numerous cities recorded the lowest murders through November since the 1960s, including Detroit (since 1964), Baltimore (1962), Philadelphia (1966), Oakland (1967), and San Francisco (likely since at least 1942).
Overall, there were likely around 12,000 fewer people murdered in the United States in 2024 and 2025 than in 2020 and 2021. That is tremendous progress that should be celebrated while acknowledging that 14,000 or so murders this year in the United States is still far too many.
Other crime types almost certainly fell at or near historic rates in 2025 as well.
Overall violent crime is down more than 10 percent in the RTCI sample through October while overall property crime is down more than 12 percent. Applying these declines, even conservatively, to the FBI’s crime rates since 1960 suggests the US in 2025 likely had the lowest reported murder and property crime rates ever recorded by the FBI and the lowest violent crime rate since the late 1960s.
These numbers are very preliminary and will change a bit between now and when they’re finalized. But the overall trends and the historical context is well grounded enabling a strong understanding of the nation’s crime trends as they have developed.
Not every crime gets reported to police and there’s a fair amount of uncertainty in exactly what the numbers will be when the FBI’s estimates are completed. Still, it’s hard to escape the conclusion — based on data from multiple sources — that crime in the United States fell a lot in 2025 to levels not seen in decades.
Only time will tell if this trend continues into 2026.
This Week on the Jeff-alytics Podcast
In this, the last episode of 2025, I talk with Ifetayo Harvey about approaching crime data, trends, and perceptions from the perspective of someone who grew up with an incarcerated parent. It was a pleasure to talk with Ifetayo who brings an extremely important — and often under-heard — voice to this topic.
You can catch this week’s episode on Spotify, Apple, Amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts!
Excluding 2021 when the FBI estimates were off because of the NIBRS transition.
This is historic. Very historic. I don't think many people, if any at all, realizes, that low homicide numbers in cities like San Francisco, Philadelphia and Detroit, the lowest since the 60s, are an indication, that the great urban crime crises of the last decades may be wane.
Interesting. I appreciate how the article really doesn't go into causes of this, other than being post-pandemic.
Is this a Trump effect? Is this a combination of lower crime in immigrant communities (ICE activity) + lower crime everywhere else because of a perception that law and order is back? Even though crime is mostly controlled at the state and city level, could the perception affect crime happening on the street?