Homicide rates in 35 American cities declined 21% from 2024 to 2025, translating to approximately 922 fewer deaths, according to a new report from the Council on Criminal Justice released Thursday. The nonpartisan criminal-justice think tank also found drops in 11 of 13 crime categories tracked, though drug crimes increased modestly and sexual assaults remained flat.
The dramatic reversal follows years of elevated violence during the COVID-19 pandemic, bringing homicide rates to their lowest levels in decades in some cities. However, experts cautioned that it remains unclear what is driving the improvement, even as elected officials from both parties have claimed credit.
The Report
The Council on Criminal Justice examined data from police departments across 35 cities, finding decreases in homicide rates in 31 of them. Denver, Omaha and Washington recorded the steepest drops, each with 40% or greater declines. Little Rock, Arkansas, stood as the only city with a double-digit increase, rising 16%.
The improvement extended beyond homicides. Vehicle thefts dropped 27% and shoplifting fell 10%, reflecting broader crime-category declines across the surveyed cities.
Expert Assessment
Adam Gelb, president and CEO of the Council on Criminal Justice, said the scope of the decrease was historic. “It’s a dramatic drop to an absolutely astonishing level. As we celebrate it we also need to unpack and try to understand it,” he said. “There’s never one reason crime goes up or down.”
Gelb noted that the council’s data suggests broad social, cultural and economic forces at the national level may matter more than local policies. “We want to believe that local factors really matter for crime numbers, that it is fundamentally a neighborhood problem with neighborhood level solutions,” he said. “We’re now seeing that broad, very broad social, cultural and economic forces at the national level can assert huge influence on what happens at the local level.”
Political Claims
Republicans, many of whom questioned the reliability of reported crime decreases in 2024, have attributed the 2025 declines to tough-on-crime policies including National Guard deployments to New Orleans and the nation’s capital, as well as immigration enforcement operations.
Democratic mayors have similarly credited their own crime-reduction strategies with the improvements.
However, cities that did not experience deployments of military personnel or federal enforcement agents also recorded comparable historic crime declines, according to the Council’s report.
Cautionary Note from Researchers
Jens Ludwig, director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab, said many factors could contribute to crime reductions, from increased law enforcement spending to investments in education. He cautioned against attributing the decrease to any single policy or local official.
“The fact that in any individual city, we are seeing crime drop across so many neighborhoods and in so many categories, means it can’t be any particular pet project in a neighborhood enacted by a mayor,” Ludwig said. “And because the decrease is happening in multiple cities, it’s not like any individual mayor is a genius in figuring this out.”
Ludwig suggested one possible explanation is the continued normalization after the elevated violence that persisted during the pandemic, though he stressed that crime trends remain volatile and unpredictable. “Regardless of credit for these declines, I think it’s too soon for anybody on either side of this to declare mission accomplished,” he said.