Which cities in the United States have the highest and lowest murder rates in 2025?
Executive summary
Available sources show no single, universally agreed 2025 ranking of U.S. cities by murder rate; multiple outlets report similar patterns (very high rates in some smaller jurisdictions and notable declines in many large cities) but disagree on exact leaders depending on which cities and timeframes they include (mid‑year vs. full‑year) [1] [2] [3]. Major, recurring names for high homicide burdens in 2025 coverage include St. Louis, Baltimore, Detroit and smaller places like East Point, GA — while large cities such as New York and Los Angeles are widely reported to have substantial year‑over‑year drops [3] [4] [2] [5] [1].
1. What the reporting actually measures — and why rankings differ
Different sources use different samples (30 cities, 42 cities, top 15 lists, “extra‑small towns”), different time slices (first half of 2025, mid‑2025 updates, 2024 calendar year) and different denominators (city proper, county, or metropolitan area). The Council on Criminal Justice’s mid‑year study looks at 42 cities through June 2025 and highlights declines in homicides in that sample (14% fewer homicides vs. the first half of 2019) — but it does not produce a single nationwide “highest/lowest” list for the full year [1] [6]. Consumer and private ranking sites often draw on a narrower set or on FBI county data and therefore report different leaders [7] [2]. These definitional choices explain much of the apparent disagreement across outlets [1] [8].
2. Cities frequently cited as having the highest murder rates in 2025
Multiple outlets flag historically high‑rate cities among the worst‑off in 2025 coverage. Freedom for All Americans and other compendia continue to list St. Louis among the highest murder‑rate cities (often called “murder capital” in media summaries), and reporting repeatedly mentions Baltimore, Detroit and Memphis as high‑burden cities in 2025 analyses [3] [9] [4]. Some private compilations and safety‑site rankings extend the list to other mid‑sized cities depending on the metric used [5] [10]. Note: the Council on Criminal Justice emphasizes that much of the national decline is driven by big drops in a handful of formerly high‑homicide cities, rather than a uniform drop everywhere [1].
3. Smaller jurisdictions can top “per‑capita” lists — East Point and others
SafeHome’s 2025 crime roundup specifically reports that among “towns and extra‑small cities,” East Point, Georgia had the nation’s highest murder rate in one 2025 compilation (nearly 79 per 100,000) — an example of how very small populations can produce extreme per‑capita rates that don’t map directly onto larger‑city rankings [2]. Private lists that include small cities or counties will therefore identify different “worst” places than lists restricted to large cities [2] [7].
4. Cities with notable declines or lower relative rates in 2025
Major‑city reporting highlights substantial declines in many big jurisdictions: the Council on Criminal Justice found homicide and other violent crimes below pre‑pandemic levels in its mid‑year sample and recorded 14% fewer homicides in the first half of 2025 versus the same period in 2019 [1]. The Washington Post’s analysis of 52 large cities reported homicides down nearly 20% year‑to‑date in 2025 for those jurisdictions, and both New York and Los Angeles are singled out as large cities with sharp reductions compared with 2021 peaks [11] [5]. These declines mean that traditional “largest city” lists (e.g., New York, LA) are doing better on homicide metrics in 2025 than in recent years [11] [5].
5. Why a single 2025 “highest” and “lowest” list is misleading
Because sources use varying city lists, different time frames (mid‑year vs full year), and different geographic units (city vs county), there is no one definitive 2025 list in the provided reporting. Some sources focus only on “major cities,” others include mid‑size or extra‑small jurisdictions; some spotlight absolute counts, others use per‑100,000 rates — and per‑capita extremes can be driven by small populations [1] [2] [7]. The Council on Criminal Justice cautions that national trends are heavily influenced by a few cities with large swings, so headline rankings can obscure underlying dynamics [1].
6. Takeaway for readers seeking reliable answers
If you want an apples‑to‑apples answer for “highest” or “lowest” murder rate in 2025, decide first which universe you mean (large cities only? all municipalities? county‑level?), and whether you mean mid‑year or calendar‑year totals — then consult the dataset that matches that choice (FBI UCR/BJS county data or city‑reporting compilations such as CCJ’s mid‑year sample) [1] [7] [6]. Current mid‑2025 reporting repeatedly places St. Louis, Baltimore and Detroit among high‑rate cities and identifies some very small places like East Point as per‑capita outliers, while many large cities show substantial declines versus pandemic‑era peaks [3] [4] [2] [11].
Limitations: available sources do not provide a single, authoritative nationwide table naming the absolute highest and lowest 2025 cities for the full calendar year; the figures and rankings above reflect differing samples and time windows reported in the cited pieces [1] [2] [3].