There Were 14,000 Murders In The United States Last Year

+/- a few hundred.

Measuring crime trends is all about the journey, not the destination. As such, I think the journey to figuring out how many murders there were in the United States last year is an interesting one that says a lot (complimentary) about the state of crime data in 2026.

So, why do I think there were 14,000 murders in the United States last year? Well, first off, I’m not nearly as confident in the precise figure of 14,000 as I am in that general ballpark. I need a few hundred murders on either side of that figure as my margin of error because my guess is, in fact, a guess.

Three organizations - my organization’s Real-Time Crime Index, the Council on Criminal Justice and Major Cities Chiefs Association have released data from variously sized samples of mostly cities. Sampling cities is a tried and true method for understanding our trends, but there is some uncertainty that comes along with it. The RTCI has murder down 18.5 percent in 2025, CCJ has it at 21 percent, and MCCA has it in the middle at 19.3 percent.

One way to guesstimate last year’s murder total is to take the 2024 figure combine it with the expected percent change, and boom. The FBI reported 16,935 murders in 2024, and if we lower 2025’s total by 18.5, 19.3 or 21 percent then we get a range of 13,379 to 13,802 murders in 2025.

But, remember, the FBI will revise up 2024’s total and the decline (however large it is) will be relative to the revised total, not the current total. So, let’s assume that the FBI’s revised figure goes to a 17,575 which would be an increase of 640 — the 2023 total was revised upwards by 655 in 2024 and the 2022 total was revised upwards by 620 in 2023. A decline in the range of 18.5 to 21 percent puts the range from that revised total at 13,884 to 14,323.

The RTCI gives another possible way to address this. Going back to 2018 (and excluding 2021 due to the NIBRS transition), the current RTCI sample has represented 51.5 percent of murders estimated by the FBI to have occurred nationally. If you divide the 7,205 murders in the current sample in 2025 by 51.5 percent then you get…just about 13,978 murders in the US last year.

Now, this calculation is based on the non-revised 2024 murder figure and it also assumes that the current sample isn’t underreported (it probably is slightly), but the basic calculation once again puts the US murder count in 2025 at right around 14,000.

Finally, the FBI’s Crime Data Explorer has a solution as well!

There are 12,702 agencies covering nearly 81 percent of the US population that has reported 12 complete months of data to the FBI right now. We can assume that it’s something of an undercount, but it shouldn’t be a huge undercount given that final year data is due to the FBI in less than a month.

Those agencies have reported 11,824 murders so far in 2025 and they reported 14,031 through December 2024 — 82.9 percent of the FBI’s currently estimated 16,935 murders for that year. Now, we don’t know exactly how the other agencies will shake out, so there’s just as much uncertainty with this methodology as with the first two I used. But if we divide 11,824 by .829 we get…14,271 murders in the US in 2025.

None of these methodologies are particularly sophisticated and there should be a good margin of error attached to either side of my guess of 14,000 murders. If the FBI reports 13,800 or 14,350 murders in 2025 then I’m going to call this guessing a roaring success!

More important to me, however, is that this exercise shows just how far things have come as far as understanding our crime trends as they develop.

Gone are the days of creating a Google sheet to track murder in 25 cities that publish data and making a wild guess. Will this prediction come true? We’ll find out when the FBI publishes their 2025 estimates in a few months, but we’ll really find out in summer 2027 when the 2025 figures are likely to be revised upwards.

Note: I rewrote the top paragraph of this piece a bit because it didn’t properly capture the seriousness of the subject matter.

New on the Jeff-alytics Podcast

I talked with Galen Druke, founder of GDPOLITICS.com, about the potential role that the nation’s crime trends might play in the upcoming midterm elections. This episode’s mission was simple: do the most terrifying thing imaginable for your intrepid podcast host and try to talk about the role of politics on how we talk about and perceive crime.

Check it out below or wherever you get your podcasts!

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And while you’re here, be sure to check out these other recent great episodes:

Arnold Ventures Executive Vice President Jennifer Doleac

FBI Assistant Director Timothy Ferguson

Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams