How have murder motives in the US changed from 2020 to 2024?
Executive summary
Murder motives in the United States between 2020 and 2024 shifted more in emphasis than in kind: the pandemic-era surge of homicides was driven largely by non-ideological interpersonal dynamics and routine-activity disruptions, while 2023–24 saw a broad retreat in killings even as ideological murders remained a small slice of the total and many cases continued to be classified with unknown motive [1] [2] [3]. Interpreting motive trends is constrained by declining clearance rates in 2020 and evolving reporting samples, so explanations remain contested among researchers and law enforcement [2] [4].
1. The big picture: rates fell after a pandemic spike
Following a dramatic rise into 2020 and 2021, homicides began to decline across cities and nationally: independent trackers and the FBI reported sizable decreases in 2024, with agencies estimating murder and non‑negligent manslaughter fell roughly 14.9 percent in 2024 versus 2023 and other real‑time indexes showing double‑digit drops in major cities [5] [4] [6]. Analysts characterize the 2023–24 reductions as a reversal of the pandemic‑era departure rather than a new anomaly, and some datasets indicate the trend accelerated into 2025 [1] [4].
2. Why motives looked different in 2020: routines, protests, and volatility
Research convened by the Council on Criminal Justice links the 2020 homicide surge to disruptions in routine activity during COVID lockdowns and the social upheaval after George Floyd’s murder, arguing that motivated offenders, accessible targets, and fewer guardians combined to raise violent confrontations — a contextual, largely non‑ideological shift in proximate motive [2]. The data show homicide clearance rates fell in 2020, which both obscured motive determination and made many cases harder to classify [2].
3. The stubborn dominance of non‑ideological motives
Across the period, murders driven by traditional interpersonal causes — arguments, domestic disputes, drug‑market conflicts, and escalating disputes — remained the dominant categories, and experts note that non‑ideological killings by extremists have historically outnumbered ideologically driven murders; in 2024 only three of 13 extremist‑linked murders appeared clearly ideological, underscoring how rare ideological motive is in the overall homicide landscape [2] [3].
4. Shifting shares: arguments, felonies and drug‑related killings
Longer‑term police reporting shows the share of homicides attributed to “arguments” has been falling for decades and continued to be a smaller slice by 2022, while felony homicides (murders tied to other felonies) accounted for about 10% in 2020 and dropped to 7% by 2022, suggesting compositional change within violent crime even as absolute counts fluctuated during the pandemic and recovery [2]. At the same time, city and national reports point to heterogeneity: some places saw sustained drug‑crime increases even as murders fell in 2024, complicating a single‑cause narrative [1].
5. Extremism, hate and the limits of headline narratives
Extremist and hate‑motivated killings attracted intense attention, but the ADL’s 2024 tracking shows that clearly ideological murders by extremists were a small minority of extremist‑linked killings that year, and right‑wing actors accounted for the documented extremist murders — a reminder that ideological motive, while politically salient, represented a tiny share of total homicides in 2024 [3].
6. Data, classification, and the unresolved questions
Interpreting motive shifts is constrained by changing samples, reporting lags, and classification practices: real‑time indexes and FBI estimates differ; clearance rates plunged in 2020 and only began improving afterward; and many murders remain listed as “unknown circumstances,” limiting definitive claims about motive dynamics between 2020 and 2024 [4] [2]. Scholars and practitioners therefore offer competing explanations — from policing and social services to informal conflict resolution and economic shifts — none of which is unambiguously settled by the available reporting [4] [1].
7. What this means going forward
The dominant takeaway is pragmatic: most of the change in murder counts from 2020 to 2024 was driven by shifts in everyday interpersonal and market‑level violence rather than a surge in ideologically motivated killing, and policy responses that target conflict escalation, drug markets, and community guardianship are likely more consequential than those focused narrowly on extremist motives — but continued attention to data quality and local heterogeneity is essential before drawing firm causal prescriptions [2] [3] [4].