Most people who follow the news probably missed Monday’s announcement from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS): Felony violent crime plunged 25 percent in 2025. Rape fell 13 percent, robbery dropped 27 percent, and aggravated assault declined 31 percent. Property crime fell 19 percent. Except for rape, these represent the largest one-year declines since the government began collecting these data 53 years ago.
That marks a dramatic reversal from the Biden administration, when felony violent crime soared by a record 59 percent and property crime rose 8 percent between 2021 and 2024.
Murders also plummeted. The U.S. recorded approximately 4.1 murders per 100,000 people in 2025, a record low, down from 5.1 in 2024. The murder rate has continued to fall. If the additional 18.4 percent decline shown in preliminary FBI data for the first seven months of 2026 holds for the full year, the murder rate would drop to approximately 3.36 per 100,000.
You might expect these unprecedented declines in violent and property crime and record low crime rates to dominate the news. Instead, most major media outlets ignored Monday’s announcement. While the New York Post and CBS covered the new data, the Associated Press, Reuters, CNN, NBC News, ABC News, the New York Times, and the Washington Post apparently didn’t consider the historic reductions newsworthy.
That lack of coverage is particularly surprising because new October polls show that voters still care about crime. A Pew Research Center poll found that 52 percent of registered voters consider violent crime a “very important” issue, while an AP-NORC survey found that 45 percent of adults identify immigration and crime as top issues.
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