JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Crime rates in the U.S. fell dramatically in 2025. That's a major takeaway among criminal justice experts as we approach the year's end. NPR criminal justice correspondent Meg Anderson has been talking to some of those experts to hear more about what they're gleaning from the last year and what they expect next year. Hi, Meg.
MEG ANDERSON, BYLINE: Hi.
SUMMERS: So, Meg, as we just said, crime fell dramatically in the past year. How so, though? Let's hear some of those details.
ANDERSON: Yeah, so basically, in short, it fell by a lot, pretty much across the board, in big cities and small towns, in red and blue states, basically everywhere. Murders in particular saw a huge decline of around 20% this year, but violent crime in general - things like rape, robbery, aggravated assault - were also down. And property crimes were down, too, including motor vehicle theft and burglaries. Those numbers are from the Real-Time Crime Index, which is run by the firm AH Dataytics and uses data from nearly 600 jurisdictions around the country.
SUMMERS: What do we know about why crime rates have fallen so much in 2025?
ANDERSON: Well, some of it is that we're kind of on the back half of a roller coaster hill. So let's talk specifically about murders. In 2020 and 2021, homicide rates surged across the country. So now that surge is coming down. Most of the crime analysts I spoke to broadly pointed towards the pandemic and its rippling effects on society and the world as a reason murders went up so much. Adam Gelb leads the Council on Criminal Justice, which researches criminal justice policies.
ADAM GELB: There was a wide array of stresses - economic, financial, psychological - that the pandemic produced, and there were greater opportunities to settle beefs with rivals precisely because there were fewer people on the streets and fewer cops on the streets.
ANDERSON: So he says, you know, as we exited those circumstances as a society, it makes sense that murders and other crimes would fall as a result.
SUMMERS: Meg, what else have you been hearing from some of these crime analysts you've been speaking to, and what other trends are they seeing?
ANDERSON: Yeah, so several experts I spoke to said they're hearing from police leaders that community trust in local policing is eroding. That's often tenuous to begin with. I spoke with Tanya Meisenholder about this. She's with the NYU School of Law's Policing Project, and she said part of that growing mistrust of police stems from President Trump's immigration crackdown.
TANYA MEISENHOLDER: For many folks in the public, they don't distinguish between types of law enforcement agents.
ANDERSON: So she said that that could make people less likely to call the police when they need help, and it could also make people less likely to help police and prosecutors as witnesses, too.
SUMMERS: If we could, let's just go back to the overall trends for a minute. If 2025 was a year when crime rates fell dramatically, what might we be able to expect from the year ahead?
ANDERSON: Yeah, so the crime analysts I spoke to did make a few predictions for 2026. First, some of them said crime has fallen by so much this year that they wouldn't be surprised if it did start going up again next year, just because crime rates do tend to ebb and flow throughout time.
And a few experts also brought up funding cuts. So last spring, the Justice Department cut funding to hundreds of organizations that specifically focus on community safety issues - things like school violence prevention programs, community violence intervention, training for rural police officers. And a lot of those organizations have already had to cut services or lay off employees. So it's too early to know how that'll affect safety in communities, if at all. Ultimately, we're just going to have to wait and see.
SUMMERS: NPR's Meg Anderson, thanks.
ANDERSON: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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