Great News! Homicides Way Down in U.S. in 2025!

If it DOESN'T bleed... it doesn't lead, apparently

Let me step to my favorite Chicago news source, HeyJackass!, for an end-of-May snapshot:

What you see in this graph is the number of homicides recorded year-to-date, end of May, for each year, in Chicago.

Yes, that’s correct, for 2025, they’ve recorded fewer homicides than every year going back as far as 2015. That’s excellent!

Murders Are Down All Over

This is not just the case in Chicago:

Billy Binion wrote a piece in Reason:

27 May 2025, Reason: Could 2025 See the Lowest Murder Rate Ever Recorded?

Despite a news cycle that prioritizes doom, the U.S. has seen that decline take hold over the last couple of years, with the murder rate in 2024 not just falling from the 2020 spike but returning to pre-COVID levels. That brings us to the present, and to a question: Could 2025 see the lowest murder rate ever recorded?

….

So what are the numbers? In surveying some of the most homicide-prone cities nationwide, crime data analyst Jeff Asher recently found more than a 20 percent decrease in murders from 2024. That's encouraging in isolation, but even more so when remembering that last year, too, saw a sharp decline, and 2023 before that. A sampling: As of early May, murders were down 31.6 percent in Baltimore, 34.5 percent in St. Louis, 36.8 percent in Cleveland, 63 percent in Denver, 30.6 percent in New Orleans, 26.8 percent in New York, and 23.7 percent in Chicago.

For an even more up-to-date example, Philadelphia had recorded 88 homicides as of May 22, according to the Philadelphia Police Department (PPD) crime dashboard. On May 22, 2021, that number was 201. Indeed, 88 is the lowest year-to-date homicide number that the PPD has listed on its dashboard for this same period—January 1 to May 22—tying with years 2014 and 2015. (2014 currently holds the record for the lowest national murder rate ever recorded.)

….

But what about the idea that we're merely coming off a murder uptick, so this is nothing to celebrate? "Fewer people are being killed than they were during a major homicide increase" is not compelling messaging, to be sure. But that's not what's happening here. We're not talking about a record decline after a precipitous surge; we're talking about a record low, period. While it's still possible that won't pan out, the fact that it's even on the table after a bloody few years is such good news that journalists might even consider leading with it.

Especially since it’s not necessarily clear why there is this big drop.

As Binion writes in his piece, while it’s difficult to trust many crime statistics, the one that is difficult to fake is the homicide rate.

It is difficult to hide dead bodies to begin with, murdered or no.

To be sure, some try. But it can be a lot of work.

Most murders are no Agatha Christie mystery, either. It’s pretty clear a person has been murdered.

So when one sees the murder rate has gone down, one wonders… why?

Seasonality of murder

To be sure, we’re just starting into the murder season (oh yay).

I did this graph back in 2020:

Chicago Homicides Quick-Take: 2020 is as Bad as 2016, Just More Concentrated

It took a lot of work to put that graph together, but maybe I can do it faster w/ AI in the future (HeyJackass! doesn’t make it easy to compile these stats). 2021 was a worse year than 2020:

The point here is that peak murders in Chicago occur in the summer, usually in July or August. May is just the “open” of the season.

So we shall see if it’s just that it’s been a really cold spring that has been keeping the numbers down.

You can see that the numbers can be pretty volatile, and the guy who runs HeyJackass! often puts weather markers, such as snow and rain, especially over weekends/holidays, because he knows the weather affects the results.

Here’s a recent example: [see the rain over 5/20]

HeyJackass! keeps track of Chicago shootings in general, not just homicides (and not all the homicides are by gunshot, though most are.) Both shootings and homicides are down in Chicago this year, compared to prior years.

It is very unlikely that it’s the result of the mayor, Brandon Johnson.

Some attempts to explain

I’ll give others the floor.

24 May 2025, Vox: Something remarkable is happening with violent crime rates in the US

In short: The pandemic led to a huge increase in violent crime, and as the pandemic waned, so did the wave.

The closure of schools during the pandemic, especially in already higher-crime cities in the Northeast, meant far more young men — who are statistically more likely to be either perpetrators of violent crime or victims of it — on the streets. The closure of social services left fewer resources for them to draw on; and the sheer stress of a once-in-a-lifetime health catastrophe set everyone on edge. The murder of George Floyd in spring 2020 led to a collapse in community trust in policing, which in turn seemed to lead to less aggressive policing altogether. As the pandemic eased, though, those buffers came back, providing a natural brake on violent crime.

But the government, from the national level down to cities, also took direct actions to stem the flood of violence. The White House under President Joe Biden poured hundreds of millions of dollars into community violence interruption programs, which aim to break the cycle of retribution that can lead to homicide. Baltimore’s Group Violence Reduction Strategy has brought together community groups and law enforcement to deter the people considered most likely to get involved in gun violence. And the erosion in police forces nationwide that occurred during the pandemic has largely stopped.

3 Jun 2025, NYPD: NYPD ANNOUNCES RECORD LOW SHOOTINGS AND MURDERS FOR THE FIRST FIVE MONTHS OF 2025

“Today, the mayor announced an unprecedented achievement: the lowest number of shootings and homicides in recorded history over the first five months of the year,” said NYPD Commissioner Tisch. “Results like this never happen by accident, and certainly not at a time when the state’s criminal justice laws have made a revolving door out of our criminal justice system. Here’s how your mayor and your NYPD cops delivered the safest January–May for gun violence in New York City’s history: three-plus years of relentlessly going after guns on our streets and a data-driven policing strategy that puts more cops in the right places at the right times to do what they do better than anyone else in the world. We will not let up. Our summer violence reduction plan is bold and aggressive and designed to continue driving the same historic safety gains.”

This is the result of the NYPD’s commitment to seizing illegal guns and the Summer Violence Reduction Plan. So far in 2025, the NYPD has removed more than 2,265 illegal guns off the streets and removed a total of 22,027 since the start of the Adams administration in January 2022.

The NYPD’s Summer Violence Reduction Plan is a citywide effort to reduce violence, strengthen enforcement, and ensure every New Yorker feels safe in the months ahead. The plan includes 70 summer deployment zones, covering 57 precincts, police service areas, and transit districts with more than 1,500 uniformed officers deployed to foot posts in precincts, public housing, and the subway system — all focused on high-priority crimes and shootings.

Here are the NYPD crime stats they report:

I find it very interesting that car theft (Grand Larceny Auto) is basically level, rape is up (it’s more numerous than murder, but I would expect that), and all the others are down.

2 Jun 2025, City of Baltimore: Mayor Brandon M. Scott Announces Continued Declining Homicides in 2025

Today, Mayor Brandon M. Scott announced that Baltimore's historic reduction in crime continued over the month of May. Compared to this time last year, the City has seen a 23.6% drop in homicides and a 23.4% drop in non-fatal shootings - the fewest number of homicides in the first 5 months of any year on record.

"This continued progress shows that our strategy to build a safer, better Baltimore is working," said Mayor Scott. "Thanks to our Comprehensive Violence Prevention Plan and the dedicated work of our community violence intervention ecosystem, BPD, and partners across the criminal justice system, homicides and shootings continue to fall. But let me be clear: this is not a time for celebration. One death is one too many. We will continue to double down on evidence-based strategies, as we work to finally cure the disease of violence that has plagued our communities for far too long."

Under Mayor Scott's leadership, crime is down across the board. As of this morning, compared to last year, auto thefts are down 33%, robberies are down 22%, arson is down 19%, and carjackings are down 11%. Since 2020, homicides have declined by 40% and nonfatal shootings have declined by 43%. In April, Baltimore saw the lowest amount of homicides ever recorded in a single month.

I’ll let them take the victory lap for now.

However.

Is there anywhere where homicides are going up or are unaffected?

Are there places where homicides are going down a lot, but they’ve done nothing in particular?

Those places are unlikely to put out press releases… well, the second group might, and try to reach for some sort of tenuous explanation. It’s good news, after all.

Still, it is good news, and let’s hope for more good news over the summer!