Which US city had the biggest drop in violent crime rate from 2024 to 2025?
Executive summary
The available reporting does not identify a single U.S. city as having the largest year‑over‑year drop in overall violent crime from 2024 to 2025; instead, analysts working from city‑level mid‑year and year‑end samples show broad declines in violent crime and note particular large homicide reductions in some cities — for example, Denver (a 45% mid‑year homicide decrease in the sample) and Chattanooga (a 41% decrease) among cities in the Council on Criminal Justice dataset [1]. The Council on Criminal Justice also reports homicides fell 17% in the first half of 2025 versus the same period in 2024 across reporting cities [2].
1. A national story of falling violent crime, but not a single‑city winner
Multiple reports show violent crime declined in 2024 and continued downward into mid‑2025, with homicides down roughly 17% in the first half of 2025 versus the first half of 2024 in the Council on Criminal Justice sample [2]. Those national and multi‑city findings do not provide a definitive, single‑city answer to “which city had the biggest drop” because the CCJ analyses emphasize samples of 30–42 cities and list the largest decreases for specific offenses or among the cities in their sample rather than ranking every U.S. city comprehensively [1] [2].
2. Which cities the CCJ singled out — large homicide drops in Denver and Chattanooga
Within CCJ’s mid‑year 2025 update, Denver recorded a 45% decrease in homicides and Chattanooga a 41% decrease among the cities that reported homicide data, figures CCJ highlights as the two largest decreases in its sample [1]. Those percentage drops apply to homicides in the subset of reporting cities for the first half of 2025 compared with the first half of 2024, not necessarily to total violent‑crime rates across all U.S. municipalities [1].
3. Limitations in the data the reporting actually uses
CCJ’s analyses rely on samples of cities that report timely monthly data; not all cities report every offense and the city lists vary between reports, so cross‑city comparisons are imperfect [3] [4]. Media outlets and agencies citing CCJ emphasize the downward trend across their sample but caution that the decline “stems from a few major cities with historically high rates” and that many jurisdictions still have rates above pre‑2020 levels [5] [3].
4. Other outlets corroborate the trend but don’t name a top city
Associated Press and Axios reported that violent crime dropped in many U.S. cities in 2024 and that the pandemic‑era spike has largely receded in their city samples, but neither provides a nationwide city‑by‑city ranking that singles out the largest overall violent‑crime decline from 2024 to 2025 [6] [7]. Safety and crime‑ranking sites discuss broad falls in violent crime and specific city improvements but focus on annual or category changes rather than declaring a single biggest drop across all U.S. cities [8] [9].
5. How to interpret percentage drops in small samples and specific offenses
Large percentage declines in an individual crime category (for example, a 45% drop in homicides) can reflect meaningful public‑safety improvements but can also be magnified by small counts or by focusing on a single offense within a limited city sample [1] [4]. CCJ itself warns that not all cities reported every offense and that trends in offenses with fewer reporting cities should be viewed with caution [4].
6. Competing perspectives and political framing
Federal agencies and political actors have used the CCJ results to argue different narratives: some emphasize substantial declines in homicides and other violent offenses to rebut claims of a nationwide crime surge, while others point to persistent high rates in specific cities as evidence that problems remain [2] [5]. The CCJ analysis notes that much of the mid‑2025 decline comes from a subset of cities, an implicit caution against single‑city extrapolation [1] [5].
7. What the sources do not provide and next steps for a definitive answer
Available sources do not provide a comprehensive, nationwide ranking that identifies which U.S. city had the single largest drop in overall violent‑crime rate from calendar year 2024 to 2025 across all cities (noted datasets are samples or mid‑year snapshots) [1] [3] [2]. To determine a definitive “biggest drop” you would need a city‑by‑city, consistent dataset covering the same 12‑month periods for every city — for example, FBI UCR/NCVS‑aligned city data or a complete compilation of municipal year‑end reports — and ensure each jurisdiction uses comparable offense definitions [3] [9].
If you want, I can extract the CCJ’s city‑level tables and list the largest reported percentage changes in homicides and other violent offenses from their mid‑year and year‑end reports so you can see which cities declined most within those samples [1] [3].