Report Shows Steep Decline in Violent and Property Crime Across Major U.S. Cities in 2025
WASHINGTON -- A new crime trends report from the Council on Criminal Justice (CCJ) documents significant declines in reported violent and property crime across 40 large U.S. cities in 2025, with homicides showing one of the sharpest year-over-year reductions on record.
According to the CCJ’s year-end 2025 update , reported levels of 11 of the 13 offenses analyzed were lower than in 2024. Nine categories declined by 10% or more. Drug offenses were the only category to increase, rising 7%, while reported sexual assault remained statistically even.
The report analyzed monthly incident-level data from police departments in 40 cities that consistently reported data between January 2018 and December 2025. The study examined 13 offenses, including homicide, aggravated assault, gun assault, robbery, carjacking, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft, and drug offenses.
CCJ cautioned that the sample is not nationally representative and that not all crimes are reported to law enforcement. CCJ reported a 21% decline in homicides from 2024 to 2025 across the 35 cities that provided homicide data, representing 922 fewer reported homicides.
Compared to 2019, homicides in the study cities were down 25%. Other violent crime trends reported for 2025 include: Violent crime overall in 2025 was at or below pre-pandemic 2019 levels across most categories, according to the report.
CCJ noted that when nationwide data for jurisdictions of all sizes are later released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the national homicide rate for 2025 could fall to approximately 4.0 per 100,000 residents. If confirmed, this would represent the lowest homicide rate recorded in U.S.
public health or law enforcement data going back to 1900 and the largest single-year percentage drop on record. The report also documents broad declines in property crime: CCJ reported that the upward trend in motor vehicle theft seen between 2020 and 2023 reversed in 2024 and continued downward through 2025.
Looking at longer-term trends, the report found that violent crime in 2025 was generally lower than in 2019 across most categories. Drug offenses were 19% below 2019 levels, despite the year-over-year increase in 2025. The report also identified a decline in “lethality,” defined as the share of serious violent incidents that result in death.
Lethality declined 8% from 2024 to 2025 in a sample of 18 cities and 5% compared to 2019, indicating that homicides fell at a faster rate than other serious violent offenses. CCJ emphasized that the findings document trends only and do not establish causation.
The organization stated that the report should not be interpreted as evidence of the success or failure of any specific policy intervention, noting that crime trends reflect a complex interaction of social conditions, enforcement practices, technology, and community-level factors.
For law enforcement agencies, the data signal measurable changes in operational demand, investigative workload, and deployment priorities, while reinforcing the importance of consistent data reporting, analytical capacity, and long-term violence prevention strategies.