Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS
The homicide rate in the United States fell to its lowest level in 75 years in 2025, according to an FBI crime report released on Friday. The report also showed overall violent crime dropped 9.3 per cent last year, continuing a national decline that experts say has been visible since 2022.
While the drop was sharp, experts said there is no single clear reason for it. They said several factors may be contributing, and cautioned against giving credit to any one leader, party, policy or programme for the fall in crime.
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“The homicide drop is historic and crystal clear. But right now, what’s driving it is about as clear as a glass of milk,” said Adam Gelb, president and CEO of the Council on Criminal Justice, a Washington-based think tank. “Rates are falling in cities with very different public safety strategies, economic conditions, and political leadership,” Gelb said. “The consistency across the map should make us cautious about handing credit to any one leader, party, policy, or program before the evidence catches up.”
US President Donald Trump announced the fall in crime during a visit to a New York police academy on Friday. He said he had played a role in lowering violent crime rates, criticised his predecessor and so-called sanctuary cities, and highlighted what he described as his support for law enforcement and tough-on-crime measures, including deploying the National Guard in Washington and elsewhere. “We ended the war on police, and we declared a very strong war on crime,” Trump said during the Long Island appearance.
Criminologists tracking violent and property crime in a few dozen cities had predicted the homicide rate might fall to 4 per 100,000 residents, which would have made it the lowest since 1900, when such rates began to be recorded. The FBI report showed the rate reached 4.1 homicides per 100,000 people, tying 1955 and 1956 as the lowest since 1900.
The report said murder and non-negligent manslaughter fell 18.1 per cent between 2024 and 2025, while overall property crime declined 12.4 per cent in the same period. Motor vehicle theft dropped by almost 23 per cent to its lowest level in more than 20 years, after spiking in 2022 and 2023 following a social media challenge that helped people exploit a manufacturing issue in some Kia and Hyundai models.
In an unusual move just months before the midterm elections, the FBI also said violent and other crime continued to fall in the first six months of 2026. The agency usually waits for full-year data before pointing to a decline. The Council on Criminal Justice has also said 2026 could record an even bigger fall than 2025, with homicides down 18 per cent in the cities it tracks in the first six months of this year compared with the same period in 2025.
Crime had surged during the coronavirus pandemic, with homicides rising by nearly 30 per cent in 2020 from the previous year, the biggest one-year jump since the FBI began keeping records. Violent crime across the US fell back to near pre-pandemic levels around 2022. The FBI said its 2025 report was based on standardised crime data submitted through its Uniform Crime Reporting Programme by more than 17,000 agencies, or more than 87 per cent of the agencies in the programme, covering communities with nearly 329 million people.
Overall, the FBI report showed a broad drop in violent and property crime in 2025, with homicides at their lowest rate in decades and early 2026 data suggesting the decline may be continuing.
With PTI Inputs
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SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA
