US Violent Crime Rate Plunges 9.7% in 2025

The US is experiencing a significant decline in crime, with the violent crime rate plunging 9.7% in 2025. This is the largest annual decline since FBI national estimates began 90 years ago. The murder rate also fell 18.5% to 4.1 per 100,000 people, tying 1955 and 1956 for the lowest rate since national estimates began. Researchers are studying various factors that may be contributing to this decline, including declining alcohol and drug use, AI-fueled policing technology, and an aging population.

According to Leonard Adam Sipes Jr., a former Justice Department senior statistics specialist, less alcohol use has played a significant role in crime reduction. He also agrees that the nation's aging and the shrinking share of younger people in the US population are pushing down crime. However, it's too early to know whether AI and other new technology have had a major effect.

Insha Rahman, president of the Vera Institute of Justice, argues that cities made investments that helped prevent violence, such as expanding summer youth employment and workforce development programs, and increasing mental health treatment as well as community violence intervention and crisis-response units. She points to cities like Newark, Chicago, and Los Angeles as examples of cities using focused deterrence, concentrating police, crisis teams, and social services in targeted neighborhoods.

The Trump administration has credited National Guard deployments and other federal interventions in cities such as Washington, D.C., and Memphis with helping to reduce violent crime. However, there's little evidence that National Guard deployments or aggressive prosecutions drove the nationwide decline, according to Sipes and Rahman.