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The Record

Receipts. Data links. No opinion.

Through October 13, 2026·Actionable

All issues

Murder and violent crime

Moving

The 2025 FBI murder rate tied a historic low. Scholars do not hand the cause to one president.

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The promise

Back the police. Crush violent crime. Make cities safe enough to live in.

What happened

  • FBI 2025: murder rate 4.1 per 100,000, down 18.1 percent from 2024.
  • Violent, property, and robbery offenses down in the same report.

USA Today, reporting the FBI’s 2025 Uniform Crime statistics on August 14, 2026: the murder rate was 4.1 per 100,000 people, tied with 1955 and 1956 for the lowest rate in the FBI series. Murders and nonnegligent manslaughter fell 18.1 percent from 2024. Violent crime fell 9.3 percent. Robbery fell 18.5 percent. Property crime fell 12.4 percent. More than 17,000 agencies reported.

The Council on Criminal Justice convened crime scholars in September 2026 and published the read in October. No single cause won. The only factor a majority called a major contributor was the easing of pandemic disruption, at 57 percent. Community violence intervention, focused deterrence, and more proactive policing were rated as at least limited contributors by most of the group. The decline began in 2022, before this term.

A national average is not your block. The council and Stateline both say cities did not move together.

What is holding it up

Congress did not block the drop. The limit is honesty about credit. Most policing is local. A trend that started in 2022, across cities with different mayors, is not a single executive order. The FBI number is real. The campaign slogan that one administration did it is not what the researchers concluded.

Still ahead

  • Cause is disputed. Pandemic recovery is the leading scholarly explanation.
  • Local results differ.

Dates

  1. 2022–2026 · Trend

    The drop starts before this term

    Council on Criminal Justice: the decline runs from 2022 through 2026. No single policy is the consensus cause.

    Open the source

  2. Aug 14, 2026 · Statistic

    FBI publishes the 2025 rate

    4.1 murders per 100,000. Largest year-to-year murder drop since the series began in 1936, per USA Today’s account of the FBI report.

    Open the source

The national murder figure really did fall, to a low the FBI had not posted since the 1950s. If your city did not feel it, that fits the research. The average hides the exceptions.

Updated October 13, 2026.

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Sources