Violent crime dropped by its largest rate ever last year, according to preliminary Department of Justice data from its annual victim survey, which showed a 25% decline.
Aggravated assaults fell 31%, robberies were down 27%, motor vehicle theft fell 29% and overall property crimes fell 19% in the data, which comes from a survey of more than 100,000 households. All of those are also records for the survey, which has been carried out for more than 50 years.
The drops are even bigger than the FBI’s crime statistics, which are taken from crimes reported to law enforcement departments. Because many crimes go unreported, the numbers don’t necessarily match up.
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Justice Department officials argued the victim survey is the better measure because it estimates the actual incidence of crime, based on those who experience it.
“This report is proof that President Trump’s ‘Make America Safe Again’ agenda is working,” said Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward. “This success reinforces our commitment to ensuring every American can live, work, and raise a family without fear.”
According to the victim data, the U.S. saw about 75,000 rapes and sexual assaults in 2025, down from 138,359 a year earlier.
Aggravated assaults dropped from about 431,000 to 410,000. But simple assaults actually rose slightly, from 359,000 to 387,000.
Property crimes fell from 492,000 to 324,000, with drops in every category from burglary to vehicle theft to vandalism.
The FBI crime report data usually gets more attention, but some experts say there’s reason to question those numbers.
In 2023, for example, the FBI data suggested the pandemic-era wave of crime was easing, while the victimization survey indicated it was still raging.
If people are reluctant to report crimes to police, then they don’t show up in the FBI data. But they may be more willing to report them on an anonymous survey.
Justice Department officials suggested the FBI data is particularly susceptible to the level of confidence Americans have in police. As crime rates rise, people may report fewer crimes, figuring they won’t be solved.
By contrast, if the rate of crimes is dropping, as the victims’ survey suggests, more people may report incidents — which could explain why the FBI data showed smaller gains last year.
For example, the FBI reported crime data showed a 7.2% drop in aggravated assaults, or less than a quarter of the 31% drop indicated by the victims’ data.
The FBI has acknowledged some hiccups in the past.
In 2024, it corrected previous data, which had originally showed a slight drop of 1.7% in violent crime from 2021 to 2022. But just before the last presidential election, the FBI quietly revised the numbers to show a 4.5% increase.
Officials at the time said they changed their reporting methods and local police departments struggled to get their data in on time. The revisions were made after more data was supplied.
The victimization report avoids those pitfalls, relying on the same methodology of surveying a massive number of households.
The response rate has, however, dropped. In 2000, 93% of households replied. Last year that figure was just 53%.
Still, the total number of households targeted was nearly 102,000, and the total number of persons in those households who were actually interviewed was more than 152,000. In 2000, fewer than 80,000 people were interviewed.
The 2025 data did face one hurdle — the lengthy government shutdown in October and November last year meant interviews ceased.
The survey is conducted by career employees at the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Susannah N. Tapp, one of the two named authors of the report, also authored the reports for the Biden years. The other named author, Jennifer L. Truman, has worked on the survey for more than a decade.
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