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Are we a less violent species in modern times/
Executive summary
Measured by some indicators — global homicide trends, large-scale interstate wars, or certain crime categories in wealthy countries — some experts and datasets have documented long-term declines in particular forms of violence. But recent years show clear reversals and persistent high levels of other kinds of violence: interpersonal and gender‑based violence remains widespread (about one in three women globally), political and armed conflicts have surged in places like Sudan and Haiti, and many regions saw backsliding in peacefulness in 2025 (Global Peace Index analysis) [1] [2] [3].
1. Long‑term declines versus short‑term reversals: two stories in tension
Scholars who point to a long arc toward less violence focus on centuries‑long drops in interstate war and certain violent crime rates in developed countries; that framing is visible in forecasting and criminological pieces that expect continued declines in robbery and homicide if recent disruptions (e.g., COVID) dissipate [4]. But policy and security reports for 2025 document significant reversals: Global Peace Index material and crisis trackers warn of rising conflict‑related deaths, accelerating geopolitical tensions, and regions where peacefulness declined — showing the long‑term story is not a simple, monotonic decline [3] [5].
2. Mass conflict and human‑rights emergencies remain acute
Human Rights Watch’s World Report 2025 highlights catastrophic levels of violence in states such as Haiti and Sudan, including mass killings, rape, child recruitment and ethnic‑targeted atrocities — evidence that political and armed violence continues to inflict enormous human cost even while other metrics may improve elsewhere [2]. CrisisWatch and risk‑analysis firms likewise catalogue persistent political unrest, insurgency, and coup risks across many countries in 2025 [5] [6].
3. Interpersonal and gender‑based violence: pervasive and undercounted
Global and UN‑linked reporting underscores that violence in private spaces remains widespread: UN and allied appeals cite that nearly one in three women experience physical and/or sexual violence in their lifetime, and campaign material stresses that “every 10 minutes, a woman is killed” worldwide — these are not marginal problems and often worsen in humanitarian crises [1] [7] [8]. Domestic‑violence compilations for 2025 also report high prevalence and, in some national datasets, rising year‑to‑year counts [9] [10].
4. Geographic divergence: some places become safer, others more violent
Analyses emphasize regional divergence: South America and South Asia registered declines in peacefulness in 2025, while other regions continued long‑term improvements; violent crime and political violence are highly uneven across countries, with homicide and robbery trends differing substantially by locality [3] [11]. This patchwork means global averages can mask severe local crises and dramatic safety gains elsewhere.
5. Changing modalities of violence — political and ideological shifts
U.S. and Western reporting in 2025 flags shifts in political violence dynamics: analyses from CSIS and FactCheck show rising left‑wing incidents from very low baselines and a striking decline in right‑wing incidents in early 2025, illustrating how ideological patterns can change rapidly and that “who” carries out violence is not fixed [12] [13]. Public perception surveys (Pew) also show Americans broadly feel politically violence is increasing, even as they disagree about causes — underlining the political salience of the question [14].
6. Economic and social costs of violence remain large
Beyond lives lost, organizations that use the Global Peace Index frameworks estimate substantial economic impacts from violence across armed conflict, interpersonal violence, and containment costs — indicating that even when some forms of violence fall, the economic drag and human consequences are significant and enduring [3].
7. Data limits and interpretation traps to watch for
Available sources show improvement in some crime metrics and worsening in others; they also highlight measurement challenges — prevalence surveys for gender‑based violence have improved, but humanitarian contexts can both increase violence and reduce reporting [7]. Forecasts (e.g., about 2025 crime declines) often rest on assumptions about post‑COVID normalization and gun‑market dynamics that, if wrong, change predictions [4] [15]. Where a claim is not in these reports (for example, a global, definitive statement that humans are “less violent” overall across all measures), available sources do not mention a single unified metric that settles the question.
8. Bottom line for readers
There is no single answer: in many long‑run, aggregate measures — especially in certain high‑income contexts and for some violent crime types — progress has been documented and may continue, but 2024–25 reporting shows substantial and growing violence in other domains (political wars, gender‑based violence, regional spikes) that belie a simple narrative of humanity becoming uniformly less violent [4] [2] [1]. The truth is contingent on which forms of violence, which places, and which timeframes you measure.