Shootings in major U.S. cities declined in 2025, according to the latest available preliminary data from the Council on Criminal Justice, extending a drop in gun violence that began after a pandemic-era peak in 2021.
While official national figures won’t be available for months — the FBI typically releases them later in the year — early data from major cities suggests the downward trend continued in 2025.
Experts have long warned about giving year-to-year crime trends too much attention, which can fluctuate for many reasons. But it’s clear killings are dropping and some researchers are calling it the “the largest one-year drop on record,” the Los Angeles Times reported.
The Council on Criminal Justice’s year-end report found that homicides in 35 cities were 21% lower when comparing 2025 to 2024, representing 922 fewer homicides in those cities.
“We’re seeing big swings in criminal justice policies, programs, and rhetoric, big advances in crime-fighting technologies, and big social, economic, and cultural shifts all happening at the same time,” Council on Criminal Justice President and CEO Adam Gelb, said in a statement.
“It’s extremely difficult to disentangle and pinpoint what’s actually driving the drop. As a result, we have a battle of sound bites and abundant claims of credit but scarce hard evidence to back them up,” Gelb said.
And despite the continued drop, gun violence remains a persistent threat. At least 40,000 people were shot in 2025. That’s more than 110 people a day across the country. Gun suicides are increasing while homicides are falling.
Reporters should keep a close eye on these shifting trends. Coverage should contextualize the drop and avoid overstating its permanence, and include the potential solutions to helpprevent violence and the year-to-year trends.
City-level trends
Last year, Chicago recorded its fewest killings since 1965. Homicides fell by 30% from 2024 and non-fatal shootings dropped 35%, according to the University of Chicago’s Crime Lab. Other major violent crimes also dropped from 2024 to 2025: carjackings dropped 50%, robberies fell by 35% and aggravated batteries dipped 9%.
“Violent crime declined substantially in 2025 across the country, including in our home city of Chicago,” The University of Chicago’s Crime Lab wrote in a year-end analysis. “[The city] experienced 168 fewer homicides through mid-December 2025 compared to the same period last year.”
The crime lab also noted a drop in homicides in other U.S. cities: New York City, St. Louis, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Detroit.
“The large drops we’re seeing in homicides in Chicago are not unique to Chicago,” according to the crime lab report. “This raises the question about the degree to which the changes we’re seeing in Chicago are due to Chicago-specific factors versus things happening more broadly across American cities.”
On the West Coast, Los Angeles experienced the fewest killings in a year since 1966 and the lowest per capita homicide rate recorded since 1959.
The city tallied 230 homicides in 2025, according to police data reported by the Los Angeles Times. That’s a nearly 19% drop from 2024, the newspaper reported.
Oakland also recorded the lowest number of violent deaths in 25 years. In a report from The Guardian, local leaders credit cooperation among city officials, community organizations and law enforcement for steaming violence citywide.
Baltimore homicides also fell in 2025, to the lowest level in 50 years. St. Louis experienced a 12-year low in homicides and crime overall dropped 16%.
Not all cities saw drops. The New York Times reported that murder rates were higher in Milwaukee at 42%, Austin, at 36% and Minneapolis at 30%. These increases show variation accros cities.
At the state level, shooting deaths and injuries fell in nearly every state, The Trace reported. Eight states experienced increases in homicides and 10 saw jumps in injuries.
The Trace also found that the number of children and teenagers killed or wounded in shootings continued to fall in 2025: declining 15% from 2024.
Contextualizing the drop
Experts are always cautious about assigning a cause to drops and spikes in violence. Multiple factors are likely to contribute.
One expert told the Chicago Sun-Times that a large infusion of pandemic stimulus funding could be having an impact. A lot of those federal dollars went toward violence prevention organizations.
If that’s true, experts worry that the downward trend will be short-lived given that most of the COVID funds are running out and the Trump administration has cut millions in federal grants to violence prevention and public safety.
If that’s the case, “we’ve got to be really nervous about what’s coming next,” the expert told the Sun-Times.
A former Los Angeles Police Department official told the Times that a lot of the drop has to do with accountability in the courts, police work and community and law enforcement cooperation.
Useful annual reports
For reporters looking to dig deeper into the data, several annual analyses provide additional context:
- The Council on Criminal Justice year-end report analyzes monthly and annual rates of 13 violent, property, and drug offenses across 40 large U.S. cities.
- The University of Chicago Crime Lab year-end analysis focuses on Chicago but also includes trends from six other major cities.
- The Trace provides a detailed breakdown of 2025 shooting data and trends.
