US on track to see largest decline in murders in 2025: report

Crime stats expert Jeff Asher wrote, "The drop in crime in 2025 continues a trend that began in 2023, accelerated in 2024, and likely became historic in 2025. A roughly 20 percent drop in murder in 2025, as is suggested by the current data, would be by far the largest decline ever recorded, eclipsing the decline in 2024 — currently pegged at -15 percent by the FBI but that’s subject to a likely upward revision next year."

Among the data cited by Asher was the Real-Time Crime Index, which states that between January and October of 2025, the most recent data available on the database, there have been 5,912 murders in the United States. This is down 19.8 percent from the same time in 2024, when 7,369 murders were recorded. The RTCI compiles data from 570 law enforcement agencies.

The FBI will not release official 2025 violent crime data until sometime in 2026. Asher noted that the RTCI through October "has only been off from the FBI’s year-end murder change estimate by around 1.5 percentage points on average."

Asher compiled 30 cities that reported the most murders in 2024, and found that nearly all have reported a decrease in murders in 2025. Birmingham, Alabama saw the largest decrease at 50 percent, while Fort Worth, Kansas City, Los Angeles, and Milwaukee were the only ones to see increases. Trump has taken numerous efforts to tackle crime in the US since taking office, including deploying the National Guard to cities such as Washington, DC, to crack down on crime.

The RTCI has also seen a 23.2 percent drop in motor vehicle theft, an 18.3 percent drop in robberies, a 14.8 percent drop in burglaries, a 12.3 percent drop in property crime, a 10.2 percent drop in violent crime, an 8.9 percent drop in theft, and an 8.7 percent drop in rape.