The Trump Administration is cleaning up the streets — nationwide.
Murders plummeted more than 20% in 2025 compared with the year before — the single-largest one-year drop on record — and the U.S. may now be seeing its lowest murder rate since 1900, according to a study released Thursday by the Council on Criminal Justice.
The group’s annual crime trends report analyzed data from 40 large U.S. cities across 13 different crime categories, including murder, carjacking, theft and drug offenses.
Alongside homicides — which fell 21% from 2024 — carjackings dropped 61% since 2023, while shoplifting declined 10% since 2024. Overall, crime rates moved lower, with violent crime at or below 2019 levels, the study found. Drug offenses were the only category that rose, while sexual assault remained even.
Researchers cited multiple potential reasons for the sharp homicide decline, while warning that “identifying decisive factors with certainty is challenging.”
Senior research specialist Ernesto Lopez, the report’s lead author, said that while the “overall reduction in crime, especially homicide, is welcome news,” he noted homicide rates had been trending downward since the late 2000s, before a spike in 2020.
“It is possible that these rates reflect a longer-term downward trend punctuated by periods of elevated homicides,” Lopez said.
The cities — including New York, Philadelphia, Omaha, Nebraska, and Raleigh, North Carolina, among others — were selected based on the availability of crime statistics during data collection in early January 2026.
While results varied by city, researchers found 25% fewer homicides in 2025 compared with 2019, with rates falling in 27 of 35 cities in the sample. Richmond, Virginia posted a 59% drop, Los Angeles fell 39%, and New York City declined 10%. Several cities saw little change, while others recorded reductions of under 5%.
More over at CBS News:
Murders plummeted more than 20% from the year before, the single-largest one-year drop on record — and 2025’s might be the lowest murder rate in the U.S. since 1900, a new study found. https://t.co/e9VlIsEzXN
— CBS News (@CBSNews) January 22, 2026
