Which specific crime categories (homicide, robbery, burglary) differ most between the 1960s/1970s and 2024–2025 per capita rates?

1. The long arc: violent crimes peaked after the 1960s, then fell — but not uniformly

Decades‑long datasets show the broad pattern: violent and property crimes rose after the 1960s, peaked around the 1980s–early 1990s, and then declined substantially into the 2000s and 2010s, so comparing per‑capita rates between the 1960s/1970s and 2024–2025 requires recognizing that many offenses were higher in the intervening peak years and have since fallen ^{[2] [4]}.

2. Homicide: a return to mid‑century levels, not a radical reversal

The U.S. murder rate rose from roughly 5 per 100,000 in the 1960s to about 9 per 100,000 in the 1970s and remained elevated into later decades, but by the 2010s and into 2024–2025 the homicide rate had fallen back toward those mid‑1960s levels, meaning the per‑capita difference between the 1960s/1970s and 2024–2025 is modest compared with other crimes ^{[1] [5] [4]}.

3. Robbery: the clearest, largest per‑capita decline

Robbery—one of the core violent property‑oriented offenses—was substantially more common in the late 20th century and has declined far more steeply than homicide over the long run; sources show robbery rates peaked before or around the early 1990s and have fallen to levels well below those seen in the 1970s and 1980s, making robbery the category with the most pronounced long‑term per‑capita drop ^{[2] [3]}.

4. Burglary and other property crimes: major declines but measurement caveats

Burglary declined markedly from its high years as well and remains significantly lower per person than in the worst decades, with recent multi‑year reports documenting substantial year‑to‑year decreases in residential and nonresidential burglaries through 2024–2025; however, property‑crime trends can be sensitive to reporting behavior and classification changes, so the magnitude of the decline is large but subject to caveats ^{[3] [6]}.

5. Why ranking matters: relative versus absolute shifts

Measured by percentage and absolute per‑capita change since the 1960s/1970s, robbery exhibits the steepest decline, burglary shows a large but somewhat smaller drop, and homicide—despite prominent year‑to‑year volatility—amounts to a smaller net change because the rate essentially returned to earlier mid‑century levels rather than collapsing far below them ^{[1] [2] [3]}.

6. Important caveats: counting rules, the hierarchy rule, and short‑term noise

Comparisons across eras are complicated by methodological changes—such as the FBI’s transition toward NIBRS and effects from the UCR “hierarchy rule” that can undercount some offenses—and by short‑term spikes like the 2020 increase and the subsequent declines through 2023–2025, which affect how stark differences appear ^{[2] [7] [4]}.

7. The story the headlines sometimes miss

Many recent media narratives emphasize a “crime crisis,” but independent analyses and federal summaries report sustained declines into 2023–2024 and further reductions in 2024–2025 for a broad set of offenses; that pattern reinforces the finding that robbery and burglary have moved farthest from their 1970s per‑capita peaks, while homicide’s long‑term position is closer to a return to mid‑century norms ^{[4] [8] [3]}.

8. Bottom line and measured judgment

When asked which specific categories differ most per person today versus the 1960s/1970s, the evidence points to robbery as the largest long‑term decline, burglary as the next largest, and homicide as a smaller net difference because its rate has effectively moved back toward 1960s levels after rising in intervening decades; this ranking remains subject to measurement nuances and recent short‑term reversals documented in the data ^{[2] [1] [3]}.