Homicide rates dropped in most US cities last year, report finds

DC mayor says violent crime is down 45%

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said Wednesday that violent crime has dropped 45% since federal oversight began. LiveNOW's Josh Breslow is joined FOX 5 DC's Melanie Alnwick and Syracuse University's Alex Wagner to discuss the latest.

The overall homicide rate in the U.S. is at its lowest in decades after dozens of cities reported decreases in homicides in 2025, according to a new report from the nonpartisan Council on Criminal Justice.

The study looked at data from 35 cities to determine whether violent crime was up or down last year. They found the homicide rate dropped in 31 of those 35 cities, and cities beyond those surveyed showed similar declines in homicides and other crimes.

Where did homicide rates drop the most? 

By the numbers:

The homicide rate was 21% lower in 2025 than in 2024 for the 35 cities represented in the study – that’s 922 fewer homicides. There were 9% fewer reported aggravated assaults, 22% fewer gun assaults, and 2% fewer domestic violence incidents last year than in 2024. Robbery fell by 23% while carjackings were down 43%. 

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Many of the property crimes in the report also declined, including a 27% drop in vehicle thefts and 10% drop in shoplifting among the reporting cities.

Local perspective:

The homicide rate dropped in 31 of 35 cities, including a 40% decrease or more in Denver, Omaha, Nebraska and Washington, DC. The only city included that reported a double-digit increase was Little Rock, Arkansas, where the rate increased by 16% from 2024.

Why are homicide rates dropping? 

What they're saying:

Adam Gelb, president and CEO of the council, said this year brought historic decreases following sharp increases in violence during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

FILE - Police tape in Franklin Park, Illinois. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

"It’s a dramatic drop to an absolutely astonishing level. As we celebrate it we also need to unpack and try to understand it," Gelb said. "There’s never one reason crime goes up or down."

Dig deeper:

Experts say it’s still too early to determine what caused the change even as politicians from both sides of the aisle take credit. 

Republicans, many of whom called the decrease in violent crime in many cities in 2024 unreliable, have rushed to say that tough-on-crime stances like deploying the National Guard to cities like New Orleans and DC, coupled with immigration operation surges, have all played a role in this year’s drops.

However, cities that saw no surges of either troops or federal agents saw similar historic drops in violent and other crimes, according to the Council’s annual report.

Democratic mayors are also touting their policies as playing roles in the 2025 decreases.

Jens Ludwig, a public policy professor and the Director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab, stressed that many factors can contribute to a reduction in crime, whether that’s increased spending on law enforcement or increased spending on education to improve graduation rates.

"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."