How do 2025 murder rates in major US cities compare to the 2024 rates?
Executive summary
Available city-level reporting shows homicide trends improving in 2025 compared with 2024: a mid‑year review of 30 major cities found a 17% drop in homicides (327 fewer) in the first half of 2025 versus the same period in 2024 [1]. National and city reporting from multiple outlets also describe declines through 2025, though some agencies and surveys note mixed or rising figures in limited timeframes or locales [2] [3].
1. Broad national picture: falling homicides after the pandemic spike
Multiple analyses and investigative pieces indicate that U.S. homicides have trended downward after peaking during the pandemic years. The Washington Post reports the national homicide rate “has fallen dramatically for nearly four straight years” and that 2025 is “trending toward its lowest level in decades,” noting 5,965 fewer killings in 2024 than in 2021 [2]. This frames the 2025 city-level improvements as part of a broader multi‑year decline rather than isolated short‑term fluctuation [2].
2. The 30‑city mid‑year snapshot: clear mid‑2025 declines
The Council on Criminal Justice’s mid‑year 2025 update — reflected in multiple summaries — finds that, across the 30 major cities that supplied incident data, homicide rates in the first half of 2025 were 17% lower than in the first half of 2024, equal to 327 fewer homicides [1]. That same dataset shows declines in several other violent categories (aggravated assaults down 10%, gun assaults down 21%), though domestic violence incidents rose slightly [1].
3. Local variability: big drops in some cities, persistent problems in others
While averages show improvement, available reporting emphasizes uneven results by city. Third‑party summaries and city reporting highlight very large declines in certain places (for example, quoted claims of double‑digit drops in cities like St. Louis and Denver appear in secondary summaries) while also noting that some cities continue to struggle with high absolute rates [4] [5]. The SafeHome roundup and other lists similarly point to cities with both sharp year‑over‑year declines and those that remain among the most violent in per‑capita terms [6] [5].
4. Conflicting signals: some official surveys show increases
Not all official gauges align with the mid‑year improvement story. The Major Cities Chiefs Association violent crime report indicates increases from 2024 to 2025 in its national totals for certain reporting periods, underscoring that different data sources, time windows, and city samples can yield divergent topline messages [3]. That means readers should not assume uniform declines everywhere simply because several high‑profile summaries show net reductions [3].
5. City reporting and clearance rates matter for interpretation
Local police department reports and municipal statistics (for example, NYPD published city crime tables) show year‑to‑year percentage changes that can differ from national summaries; some local reports emphasize falling murders and improved clearance rates, which affect public perception and policy responses [7] [6]. These operational details — how agencies count, the months included, and changes in case clearance — shape whether a jurisdiction appears improved or not in headline comparisons [7] [6].
6. Why differences appear: methods, time windows, and city selection
The available sources demonstrate three common reasons for variation: (a) different time periods (first half of 2025 vs. calendar 2025 through November vs. annual 2024 figures), (b) varying city samples (a 30‑city study versus national compilations or selective “most dangerous” lists), and (c) reliance on police incident data versus FBI or other aggregated datasets [1] [2] [5]. These methodological differences explain why one report can show a 17% mid‑year decline while another survey flags increases for a different set of cities or quarters [1] [3].
7. How a reader should interpret the comparisons
Compare like with like: use the same cities and the same months or full calendar years when possible, and check whether the source is counting incidents, victims, or rates per 100,000 residents. The Council on Criminal Justice mid‑year finding of 17% fewer homicides is a robust headline for that specific 30‑city sample and timeframe, but it does not prove every major city improved or that longer timeframes will show the same magnitude of change [1] [2].
8. Bottom line and what’s missing from available reporting
Available sources consistently report meaningful declines in many cities and nationally through 2025, with the Council on Criminal Justice quantifying a 17% mid‑year reduction across 30 cities [1] [2]. However, reporting also contains mixed signals — some official surveys show increases in certain metrics or periods — and city‑by‑city differences remain large [3] [4]. Detailed, comparable annual city datasets for all major cities across identical timeframes are not fully present in the supplied material; those gaps limit precise, apples‑to‑apples comparisons across every major U.S. city (available sources do not mention fully comparable city‑by‑city annual datasets for all large cities).