Which large US cities saw the biggest year-over-year change in violent-crime rates since 2020?
Executive summary
Big-city violent crime rose sharply in 2020 and — according to multiple data analysts and organizations cited here — has fallen since then, with notable year‑over‑year declines by 2023–2025 in many large American cities (for example, CCJ finds violent crimes below mid‑2019 levels and 14% fewer homicides in its mid‑2025 sample than in the first half of 2019) [1]. Local accounts highlight big declines in individual cities: Portland reported a 51% drop in homicides in H1 2025 and the largest violent‑crime decrease among 68 agencies in that Major Cities Chiefs Association report [2].
1. The 2020 spike and the broad arc since then
Crime analysts trace a sharp rise in murders and some violent crimes in 2020, followed by a multi‑year retreat: the FBI and aggregators show violent crime rose in 2020 and then eased, with several independent analyses concluding violent crime “has fallen since then” and dropped overall by 2023 compared with the pandemic peak [3] [4]. The Council on Criminal Justice’s mid‑2025 review finds violent crimes in its 42‑city sample back below mid‑2019 levels and reports 14% fewer homicides in the first half of 2025 than in the first half of 2019 [1].
2. Which large cities changed most — headline examples from recent reports
Available reporting identifies standout year‑over‑year moves rather than a single ranked nationwide list. Portland is singled out for the largest decrease among 68 agencies in the Major Cities Chiefs midyear report, including a 51% drop in H1 2025 homicides and a 17% overall violent‑crime drop versus H1 2024 [2]. Nationally representative analyses and aggregators also cite big rebounds in cities that experienced the steepest pandemic‑era increases, including Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angeles and Philadelphia showing significant declines in some series [2] [1].
3. Variation and outliers: where declines were smaller or reversals occurred
Not every large city followed the national downward trend. Reporting flags cities where murder rates remained elevated or even rose after 2020 — for example Washington, D.C., Memphis and Seattle were named as locations with higher murder rates in the 2023 reporting discussed by NPR [4]. That shows the national picture masks significant local divergence [4].
4. Why different sources give different emphases
Different organizations analyze different city samples, offense definitions and timeframes. The Council on Criminal Justice looked at 42 cities through June 2025 and compares to 2019 baselines [1]. Major Cities Chiefs Association reports and AH Datalytics use other city samples and points in time; local police releases (e.g., Portland’s) emphasize their own jurisdictional changes [2] [3]. Those methodological differences explain why one source will highlight Portland or Baltimore while another stresses national improvement [2] [1] [3].
5. What the headline numbers don’t show — context and caveats
Available sources stress limitations: crime is complex and local, short‑term swings can be “regression to the mean,” and declines in aggregated homicide counts don’t eliminate high local risk or episodic mass‑killing events [5] [6]. CCJ and news outlets caution that while national and many big‑city rates have fallen since the 2020 peak, the trend is uneven and driven by a subset of cities and crime types [1] [4].
6. Political and institutional lenses shaping coverage
Some commentary interprets falling crime as validation of specific policies; partisan outlets and commentators sometimes attribute declines to policing or political changes without uniformly rigorous causal proof in these sources [7] [8]. Independent analysis groups and academic commentators emphasize that explanation requires careful study; one expert quoted warns statisticians see some recent declines as regression toward historical means rather than the result of a single policy [5].
7. Bottom line for readers asking “which cities changed most?”
Available reporting identifies Portland as a leading example of a large, recent year‑over‑year drop (51% fewer homicides H1 2025 and largest violent‑crime decrease among 68 agencies in the cited chiefs’ report) and points to sizable declines in several historically high‑violence cities such as Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angeles and Philadelphia in some datasets [2] [1]. However, national‑level studies and journalists caution that the pattern is uneven: some large cities still saw elevated homicide rates after 2020 [4] [1]. Available sources do not provide a single, universally consistent ranked list of “largest year‑over‑year changes since 2020” across all large U.S. cities; differences in samples, timeframes and offense definitions produce different answers [1] [2].
Limitations: This analysis uses the specific sources you provided and therefore can’t incorporate other databases or the FBI’s full annual UCR/CIDE release unless those are in the supplied material.