Homicide Rates Drop 17% in Major US Cities, Property Crimes Decline Sharply

By Vanguard Staff

Reported levels of nearly every major crime across 42 large American cities fell in the first half of 2025, according to a new mid-year update from the Council on Criminal Justice. The study, authored by Ernesto Lopez and Bobby Boxerman, Ph.D., examined 13 offenses and found that 11 showed year-over-year declines, with domestic violence the only category to rise and drug offenses remaining unchanged.

The data cover cities that have consistently reported monthly crime statistics over the past six years. “Reported levels of 11 of the 13 offenses covered in this report were lower in the first half of 2025 than in the first half of 2024; domestic violence was the only offense that rose during this period, and drug offenses remained even,” the report states.

Among violent crimes, the overall rate of homicide declined by 17% compared to the same period in 2024, amounting to 327 fewer killings across the 30 cities that reported data. Aggravated assaults dropped by 10%, gun assaults by 21%, sexual assaults by 10%, and robberies by 20%. Carjackings fell by 24%. However, domestic violence incidents rose by 3%.

On the property crime front, motor vehicle theft—which had been rising since 2020—fell sharply, with 25% fewer incidents compared to the first half of 2024. Residential burglaries dropped by 19%, non-residential burglaries by 18%, larceny by 12%, and shoplifting by 12%. Drug offenses remained level.

The report also compares current figures to pre-pandemic levels in 2019. “There were 14% fewer homicides in the study cities in the first half of 2025 than in the first half of 2019,” the authors wrote. “Similarly, reported aggravated assault (-5%), gun assaults (-4%), sexual assault (-28%), domestic violence (-8%), robbery (-30%), and carjacking (-3%) were lower in 2025.”

Lopez and Boxerman note that although the homicide rate has declined significantly since its pandemic-era spike, much of the drop is driven by a few large cities with high baseline homicide rates. “All of the sample cities are now below the general peak of 2020 to 2021,” they wrote, “but only 38% of the city sample is below pre-2020 levels, when comparing across 12-month periods.”

The decline in property crimes has also been uneven. Compared to 2019, residential burglaries are down 47%, larcenies by 19%, and shoplifting by 4%. However, motor vehicle theft is still 25% higher than it was in 2019, and non-residential burglary rates are roughly even. Drug offenses are down 27% over the same time period.

The Council cautions against complacency, warning that crime trends can reverse quickly. “After reaching an historic low in 2014, the national homicide rate spiked by 23% just two years later,” the report notes. “While there are plausible theories for that turnabout, and for the volatile patterns over the past five years, the drivers of these trends are poorly understood.”

The study emphasizes the need for continued research and investment in better crime data systems. “Timely, accurate, complete, and usable crime trends data are critical to guiding efforts to control and prevent crime in the U.S.,” the report says. The Council’s Crime Trends Working Group released a set of recommendations in June 2024 to improve the nation’s crime data infrastructure, including enhanced reporting of non-fatal gun violence, white-collar crimes, environmental crimes, and cybercrime.

Although the national drop in homicides is encouraging, the Council underscores that many communities still suffer from high levels of violence. “Understanding recent crime trends is not a purely academic exercise,” the report says. “From 2020 to 2024, an estimated 13,500 more people were killed by homicide than in the previous five years (2015-2019).”

The authors point to a troubling trend: while overall violent crime has decreased, the share of violent incidents that end in death has increased. This suggests that although violence is less frequent, it may be more lethal when it does occur. “At this point, it is unclear what factors may be contributing to the national homicide decline. But the increase in lethality, coupled with the declines in non-fatal violent crime, suggests that there are fewer situations in which people are at high risk of becoming the victim of a homicide, such as during a robbery.”

The Council urges policymakers to use this moment of relative decline to invest in long-term, evidence-based crime prevention. “Though encouraging, the nation’s return to lower levels of nearly all major offenses should not slow efforts to reduce crime,” the report concludes. “While homicides have dropped significantly in many of the largest American cities, many communities continue to suffer from disturbingly high rates of violence, and evidence-based crime reduction strategies, such as those prioritized by the CCJ Violent Crime Working Group, are still urgently needed.”

The full report is available on the Council on Criminal Justice website.