Violent crime in the U.S. plummeted last year to roughly 1.1 million violent crimes, a 9.3% drop from 2024 and the largest one-year decline on record, President Trump announced ahead of the FBI’s release of its latest crime statistics.
The statistics released Friday show an 18.1% drop in the murder rate in 2025 compared to 2024.
Violent crime dropped across multiple categories, with significant year-over-year decreases. Assaults fell by 7.2%, rapes declined by 7.6% and robbery was down 18.5%.
Motor vehicle theft plunged by 22.7% in 2025, while burglary dropped by 15.8%, the statistics revealed.
In addition, preliminary data for 2026 shows that violent crime could fall to its lowest totals in recorded history with nine of 13 categories showing decreases of 20% or higher. Murders are expected to drop 23%, robberies are forecasted to be down by 20% and carjackings could fall by a whopping 51%.
Speaking at the Nassau County Police Academy in Garden City, New York, Mr. Trump touted his administration’s efforts to reduce crime.
“Together, we’re showing what is possible when you finally have a president in the White House who supports our police, who lets you do your jobs and who always backs the blue,” Mr. Trump told the crowd.
Since returning to the White House last year, Mr. Trump has taken an aggressive approach to curbing violent crime.
On his first day in office, Mr. Trump reinstated the death penalty, rescinding President Biden’s ban on executions. He also launched a nationwide illegal immigration crackdown, deporting noncitizens with criminal records and deployed National Guard troops to major U.S. cities, including the District.
Criminal analysts praised the results. Adam Gelb, CEO of the Council on Criminal Justice, called the crime drop “one of the most significant public safety developments in decades,” but he said the reasons for the declines were unclear.
“That means lives saved, families spared trauma and communities made safer — and it deserves to be celebrated,” Mr. Gelb said. “But the reasons for the decline are much less clear than the decline itself. There will be plenty of competition to claim credit, but the evidence isn’t ready to award a trophy. We need to understand what’s working, where, for whom and under what conditions. Progress we don’t understand is progress we risk squandering.”
Mr. Trump frequently touts his efforts to reduce crime and, last week, threatened to sue the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank that published a report concluding the National Guard deployments failed to reduce crime.
The president wrote on social media that “crime is way down since I took office and they know it.”
For Republicans, crime reduction could be a winning issue in the upcoming midterm elections. It has long been a cornerstone of the GOP platform that they’ve used to attract suburban swing voters.
Mr. Trump won Nassau County in 2024, flipping it for the Republicans for the first time in 20 years. It’s home to two Democratic House seats that Republicans view as winnable.
Crime has emerged as a critical issue in the New York governor’s race, with both candidates arguing they have the better track record of making the state safe. Incumbent Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, is facing off against Bruce Blakeman, a Republican endorsed by the president, who attended Mr. Trump’s speech on Friday.
“The radical left Gov. Kathy Hochul has been very, very bad on crime, a nightmare for crime,” Mr. Trump said.
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