In 2025, the U.S. murder rate was the lowest in recorded history (nationwide records begin in 1960). It has nothing to do with Trump, with policing or sentencing. In fact, we really have no idea why murder – like all other violent crime – has declined.
This discussion will focus on homicide because the accuracy of the data is unquestionable. First, understand that, nationally, the raw number of murders is lower than any time since the late 1960s and the murder rate (based on population which has, of course, increased over time) is the lowest it’s ever been measured. And murder declined again in the first four months of 2026.
The decline since the early 1990s is simply amazing. It’s also very difficult to explain. It has to be a caused by a big nationwide trend. Sentencing and policing cannot be the cause because the trend is universal. There are two reasonable theories: (1) lead in the environment, especially due to leaded gasoline, made people more violent and policies that greatly reduced lead started to have an effect around 1990; and (2) the legalization of abortion in 1973 meant that millions of unwanted children, who may have been more prone to violence once they grew old enough, were reduced. But nobody knows why crime went up or down and the current low murder rates are factually unexplainable.
Here is some city-by-city data. Murder in New York City is down 90 percent since 1990. It is down by more than 80 percent in Washington DC, Detroit, New Orleans, and Los Angeles. It is down by more than 70 percent in Baltimore and Philadelphia.
Currently, the far-right is trying to argue that crime is not really down in Washington DC, that police officials tampered with the numbers. Well, there may have been some tampering, but not enough to change the fact that crime is down substantially. In any case, MAGA cannot argue that police officials tampered with the murder numbers – it is simply impossible. And murder has declined by an additional 60 percent so far this year in DC compared to the same period in 2025. These reductions are amazing and, again, there are no facts that make them currently explainable.
NOTE: The graphs and much of the data comes from an excellent blog called Jeff-alytics. Additional District of Columbia data comes from MPD’s CrimeCards.