Homicides and several other serious offenses, including gun assaults and carjackings, dropped during the first half of 2025 across 42 U.S. cities, continuing a downward trend that began in 2022, according to a new crime trends report released Thursday by the nonpartisan think tank Council on Criminal Justice.
Homicides fell 17 percent in the first half of 2025, compared with the same period in 2024, among the 30 cities that reported homicide data, according to the report.
During that same period, five cities saw increases in homicide — ranging from 6 percent in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to 39 percent in Little Rock, Arkansas.
While the report’s authors say the continued drop in violent crime — especially homicides — is encouraging, they note that much of the decline stems from a few major cities with historically high rates, such as Baltimore and St. Louis.
More than half of the cities studied have higher homicide rates than before the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall, though, the analysis found that there were 14 percent fewer homicides during the first half of 2025 compared to the same period in 2019.
The authors say more research is needed before crediting any specific policy or practice for the continued drop in violent crime.
The group’s findings come as President Donald Trump continues to amplify concerns about crime, at times citing misleading statistics and narratives.
In a Truth Social post earlier this week, Trump claimed that cashless bail — a practice that allows people charged with a crime to be released pretrial without paying money, unless a judge deems them a threat to public safety — were fueling a national crime surge and endangering law enforcement.
He wrote: “Crime in American Cities started to significantly rise when they went to CASHLESS BAIL. The WORST criminals are flooding our streets and endangering even our great law enforcement officers. It is a complete disaster, and must be ended, IMMEDIATELY!”
Some research suggests that setting money bail isn’t effective in ensuring court appearances or improving public safety. Opponents of ending cash bail often raise concerns that released suspects might commit new, potentially more serious crimes. While that is possible in individual cases, studies show that eliminating cash bail does not lead to a widespread increase in crime.
The Truth Social post also marked a sharp shift from Trump’s remarks during a June roundtable with the Fraternal Order of Police, where he claimed the national murder rate had “plummeted by 28 percent” since he took office — a figure that overstates the decline and overlooks the fact that murder rates began falling well before he returned to office.
According to data consulting firm AH Datalytics, which manages the Real-Time Crime Index — a free tool that collects crime data from more than 400 law enforcement agencies nationwide — the number of homicides between January and May 2025 was 20.3 percent lower than the same period in 2024.
Similarly, data released in May by the Major Cities Chiefs Association showed that homicides fell roughly 20 percent in the first quarter of 2025 compared with the first three months of the prior year. The group’s data is based on a survey of 68 major metropolitan police departments nationwide.
Researchers at the Council on Criminal Justice note in their report that it’s difficult to pinpoint a single reason for the drop in homicides, but they note that fewer people appear to be exposed to high-risk situations, such as robberies.
Most major crimes fell in the first half of 2025 compared with the same period last year, according to the council’s report.
Motor vehicle thefts dropped by 25 percent, while reported gun assaults fell 21 percent. Robberies, residential and non-residential burglaries, shoplifting, and aggravated and sexual assaults also saw double-digit declines
Drug offenses held steady, while domestic violence reports rose slightly — by about 3 percent. Carjackings declined 24 percent and larcenies were down 5 percent.
Compared with the first half of 2019, before the pandemic and nationwide reckoning over racial justice and policing, overall homicides are down 14 percent, robberies by 30 percent, and sexual assaults by 28 percent.
Still, more than 60 percent of the cities in the council’s study sample report homicide rates that remain above 2019 levels.
Motor vehicle theft remains the only crime tracked in the report that is still elevated compared to pre-pandemic levels — up 25 percent since 2019 — although it has declined sharply since 2023.
The council also released another analysis on the lethality of violent crime, showing that while violent incidents have decreased, the share of violence that ends in death has increased significantly. In 1994, there were 2 homicides per 1,000 assaults and about 16 per 1,000 robberies. By 2020, those figures rose to 7.2 and 55.8, respectively.
This story first published in Stateline. Read the original here.
