How does Chicago's murder rate compare to New York City's in 2025?
Executive summary
Chicago’s murder rate in 2025 remained meaningfully higher than New York City’s on a per‑capita basis, continuing a multi‑year pattern in which Chicago ranks among the nation’s higher homicide‑rate large cities while New York sits near the bottom of its peer group [1] [2]. Both cities saw overall declines in killings into 2025, but Chicago’s raw counts and per‑person rate stayed elevated compared with New York [3] [4].
1. Snapshot: raw counts and headline figures
Chicago recorded a notable drop in homicides from 587 in 2024 to 416 in 2025 according to Chicago Police Department totals reported by the Chicago Sun‑Times, a decline the paper characterized as bringing the city to its fewest killings since 1965 [3]. Sources covering nationwide mid‑2025 trends report fewer homicides across many major cities during the first half of 2025, a pattern that includes, but does not erase, Chicago’s higher relative burden [4].
2. Per‑capita comparison: Chicago higher, New York lower
Analyses and city‑ranking compilations repeatedly show Chicago’s homicide rate sits well above New York City’s on a per‑100,000‑residents basis, with working papers and visualizations ranking Chicago among the highest for large cities while New York has one of the lowest rates in the same population category [1] [2]. Visual Capitalist’s ranking noted that while Chicago’s absolute homicide count was large, its rate placed it mid‑pack among U.S. cities; other researchers still identify Chicago as having a higher per‑capita homicide rate than New York [2] [1].
3. Recent trends: both falling, but different baselines
By late 2024 and into 2025, homicide totals fell in many cities, and the Council on Criminal Justice documented a notable drop in homicides across its study cities in the first half of 2025 compared with 2024 [4]. Chicago’s substantial year‑over‑year decline in raw murders was reported by local outlets, but because Chicago started from a higher baseline of killings and a higher per‑capita rate, the gap with New York remained meaningful even as both cities saw improvements [3] [4].
4. Explaining the gap: concentrated violence, policy and context
Researchers and local reporting point to concentrated violence in particular Chicago neighborhoods and long‑running structural factors—like concentrated poverty and a legacy of segregated housing policy—that help explain why Chicago’s citywide rate is higher even when overall numbers fall [5]. New York’s historically aggressive enforcement strategies and different policing practices are often cited as part of its lower citywide homicide rate relative to Chicago, though scholars caution that these policy differences interact with many socioeconomic variables [5].
5. Conflicting narratives and partisan framing
National political actors and partisan outlets have presented divergent takes: some federal statements and right‑leaning outlets emphasize Chicago’s high murder totals and argue for federal intervention, sometimes citing statistics that frame Chicago as dramatically worse than peers [6] [7]. Independent working papers and city‑level data sources present a more nuanced view that Chicago’s per‑capita homicide rate is higher than New York’s but that both cities experienced declines into 2025—an important distinction between trend and level that political rhetoric can obscure [1] [4].
6. Data caveats and what to watch next
Comparisons depend heavily on whether analysts use raw counts, per‑100,000 rates, city versus county measures, or multi‑year trends, and some public data sets were still being updated during early 2025 reporting windows, which can change rankings modestly [2] [4]. Independent trackers and academic working papers concur that Chicago’s homicide rate exceeded New York’s in 2025 even as both moved downward, but continued monitoring of finalized year‑end data and the geographic concentration of violence within each city is essential for a full picture [1] [4].