The homicide rate in the United States dropped to the lowest it’s been in 75 years, according to an report on 2025 statistics released Friday, which also showed overall violent crime dropped 9.3% last year.
Experts note that national violent crime rates have been declining since 2022, and pinpointing an exact reason is difficult. They say multiple factors contribute to decreases in crime rates seen in the FBI report, which is based on data reported voluntarily by many but not all law enforcement agencies across the country.
鈥淭he homicide drop is historic and crystal clear. But right now, what鈥檚 driving it is about as clear as a glass of milk,鈥� said Adam Gelb, president and CEO of the Council on Criminal Justice, a think tank based in Washington.
鈥淩ates are falling in cities with very different public safety strategies, economic conditions, and political leadership,” Gelb said. “The consistency across the map should make us cautious about handing credit to any one leader, party, policy, or program before the evidence catches up.鈥�
President Donald Trump announced the decreases in the annual crime numbers to a New York police academy Friday.
Trump proclaimed his role in lowering violent crime rates, taking a swing at his predecessor and at so-called sanctuary cities, while touting what he said was his overwhelming support of law enforcement and his tough-on-crime moves such as deploying the National Guard in Washington and elsewhere.
鈥淲e ended the war on police, and we declared a very strong war on crime,鈥� Trump said during the Long Island appearance.
Regardless of the contributing factors, criminologists who have been tracking violent crime and property crime in a few dozen cities that the homicide rate might drop to 4 per 100,000 residents, which would have dropped the rate to the lowest since 1900, when those rates began to be tracked.
The rate came close when the numbers from thousands of departments were calculated, reaching 4.1 homicides per 100,000 people. That rate is tied with 1955 and 1956, according to Friday’s report, as the lowest rate since 1900.
The report showed murder and nonnegligent manslaughter decreased 18.1% between and 2025, while overall property crime declined by 12.4% during the same period.
Motor vehicle theft, which had spiked in 2022 and 2023 following a social media challenge that helped people exploit a manufacturing issue in some models of vehicles, dropped by almost 23% to the lowest levels in more than 20 years.
In an unusual move just a few months before the midterm elections as many Republicans continue to tout the drop in crime, the FBI report also noted that violent and other crime has continued to drop during the first six months of 2026. The federal agency normally waits until all of the yearly data is reported to suggest a drop in crime.
Groups like the Council on Criminal Justice have also said 2026 could see an even than 2025, with homicides dropping 18% in those cities during the first six months of this year, compared with the same timeframe in 2025.
Crime surged during the coronavirus pandemic, with homicides increasing over the previous year, the largest one-year jump since the FBI began keeping records. Violent crime across the U.S. .
The FBI collects standardized crime data from law enforcement agencies across the country through its , though not all agencies participate. The 2025 report includes data from more than 17,000 agencies, or more than 87% of the agencies in the FBI’s program, serving communities including almost 329 million Americans.
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