Detroit recorded 165 homicides in 2025, a continued decline officials said Wednesday is the city’s lowest number of criminal homicides since at least the early- to mid-1960s.
Police Chief Todd Bettison told reporters that the city counted 165 homicides for all of 2025, which is 38 fewer than the 203 homicides Detroit reported for 2024. Detroit said the 203 total in 2024 was its lowest since 188 homicides were committed in 1965.
The city’s homicide totals have also shown a multi-year downward pattern. Detroit recorded 252 homicides in 2023, 309 homicides in 2022 and 308 homicides in 2021.
Alongside the homicide figures, Detroit reported other types of violent crime declined in 2025. Nonfatal shootings fell from 603 in 2024 to 447 in 2025, carjackings dropped from 142 to 77, and robberies dipped from 1,209 to 953. The city also reported that sexual assaults and auto vehicle thefts were down.
Bettison said Detroit’s efforts are working. “What we’re doing in the city of Detroit is working,” he said, adding, “We will continue investing in prevention, enforcement, technology — everything.”
The AP reported that Detroit’s drop is occurring amid a broader national trend described by federal data. The FBI statistics released in August showed violent crime in the United States fell 4.5% in 2024 and property crime declined 8% from the previous year, and said murder and nonnegligent manslaughter fell nearly 15% in 2024 from a year earlier.
At the same time, De Biasi, a professor of criminology and criminal justice at Wayne State University in Detroit, said the reductions nationally reflect a return to earlier levels after pandemic-era increases. She said major reductions in crime are “kind of a return to pre-pandemic levels,” and described Detroit’s approach as running multiple violence-reduction efforts in parallel. “We have multiple violence reduction initiatives happening at any one time,” De Biasi said.
Detroit’s reported initiatives include using intelligence around gun crimes to identify people using firearms and the times and areas where crime occurs most often. The city said more than 6,200 guns were recovered in Detroit in 2025. It also reported that officers were assigned to respond to illegal street parties and that metal detectors and scanners were used during large events like the 2024 NFL Draft held downtown.
When asked about President Donald Trump’s claims that some large, mostly Democratic-run cities have runaway crime amid threats to use the National Guard, Bettison said he was focused locally. “I’m just focused on local, what I’m doing,” Bettison said, adding, “My job as police chief is to continue that we have a safe environment … pushing down crime.”
The AP also reported that Detroit’s homicide rate has declined. A study by the Center for Public Safety Initiatives at Rochester Institute of Technology said the city’s homicide rate was about 32 per 100,000 residents in 2024. For 2025, the rate was down to about 25 per 100,000 residents based on a population estimate of about 645,000.