Crime fell across much of the U.S. in 2025 — in the Midwest, the South, the Northeast and the West, in big cities and small towns, and in red and blue states.

The number of murders saw a huge drop — about 20% fewer than in 2024, according to the Real Time Crime Index, which uses local crime data from nearly 600 jurisdictions around the country. Other violent crimes, including rape, robbery and aggravated assault, also declined, as did property crimes like motor vehicle theft and burglaries.

"It's the best year in crime I've seen in 27 years in this business," says John Roman, who directs the Center on Public Safety & Justice at NORC, a research group at the University of Chicago.

NPR spoke to researchers who study trends in crime, policing and criminal justice about the numbers. Here are some of their main takeaways this year — and what they expect in 2026.

What caused the drop in murders?

Part of the reason, researchers say, is that the nation is over the hump of the pandemic.

During 2020 and 2021, homicide rates surged across the U.S. Now the nation is simply on the other side of that surge.

"There was a wide array of stresses — economic, financial, psychological — that the pandemic produced," said Adam Gelb, president of the Council on Criminal Justice, which researches criminal justice policies. "And there were greater opportunities to settle beefs with rivals, precisely because there were fewer people on the streets and fewer cops on the streets."

Many people lost their jobs, and an array of government services — things like mental health care and community centers — were disrupted. Between March and May 2020, the local government workforce in the U.S. shrank by around 10%. Now, local government jobs have rebounded.

Roman, of NORC, says it's helpful to think of violence as an epidemic. More crime leads to more crime, and less leads to less, just like more instances of a virus can lead to more people becoming infected.

"If epidemics cause things to spiral up, they should create virtuous cycles on the way down," he said. "The fewer serious crimes there are, the more resources law enforcement has to investigate each crime."

Rhetoric vs. reality

Some researchers pointed to a disconnect between the widespread decrease in crime, and President Trump's depictions of crime this year, particularly in Democrat-led cities.

Trump called Chicago the "most dangerous city in the world" and said Washington, D.C., had been "overtaken by violent gangs." The two cities, and others, eventually became the focus of federal law enforcement surges aimed at cracking down on crime and immigration.

Chicago and D.C. have historically had higher crime rates compared to many U.S. cities, but they have also both seen crime falling in recent years, like much of the rest of the country.

Using the threat of crime to justify crackdowns should make Americans wary, said Tahir Duckett, who directs the Center for Innovations in Community Safety at Georgetown Law.

"That's a dark story that we have heard told in history," he said, "justifications for repression of civil rights, justifications for seizing additional authority."

Other researchers told NPR the federal intervention in U.S. cities — particularly the administration's clampdown on immigration — is harming trust, which can already be tenuous, between local police leaders and communities.

"For many folks in the public, they don't distinguish between types of law enforcement agents," said Tanya Meisenholder, director of police research at New York University School of Law's Policing Project.

She said that mistrust can make people less likely to call 911 when they need help and less likely to help police and prosecutors as witnesses.

Looking to 2026

Researchers weren't optimistic the decline in crime would continue into the new year. Some said with rates falling so much in 2025, they wouldn't be surprised to see them rise in 2026.

Government funding cuts worry experts like Ames Grawert, senior counsel in the justice program at the Brennan Center for Justice.

In April, the Justice Department cut grants to hundreds of organizations focused on community safety, including school violence prevention programs, community violence intervention and training for rural police officers. Many of the affected organizations have already had to shrink their services or lay off employees.

"These are programs that people of both parties should agree are an important way to reduce gun violence, an important way to support communities and reduce crime," Grawert said. "We were just starting to understand how these programs work, how to improve them."

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