The national decline in murders probably will level off in 2025, predicts New Orleans-based crime statistics analyst Jeff Asher on Substack. Murder fell at the fastest pace ever recorded in 2023 and it fell even faster in 2024, but there is evidence that some places with large declines over that span are starting to see things level off. "I’d wager we won’t see an enormous decline in murder for a third straight year," Asher says.
Still, another drop in the murder total is likely in 2025. The largest one-year decline in murder before 2023 was 9.1 percent in 1996, so betting on a levelling off in murder — even if we see still a decline — seems like the smart bet.
Reported violent crime fell between 1 and 6 percent in 13 of the 19 years between 2005 and 2024, so predicting a small decline in violent crime is usually the safe bet. There are some signs that any drop in reported violent crime next year will be relatively slight.
If violent crime is about even in 2025 (or increases a little) then the robbery trend in 2024 stands out. Robbery was down 1.1 percent in the Real-Time Crime Index sample through October, but while it dropped 6 percent in the 10 cities of 1 million or more in the sample, robbery was up 3.5 percent in the other 299 cities under 1 million.
The safe bet is that violent crime will likely continue to be about even next year. "My guess is that the violent crime rate will stay around where it has been for most of the last 15 years," Asher says. "Whether it’s the lowest violent crime rate recorded since 1970 or just very close to it remains to be seen."
Property crime is likely to fall again in 2025. Reported property crime has fallen nearly every year since 2004 and the the current trendline does not suggest a reversal anytime soon. The declines are robust in burglaries, thefts, and motor vehicle thefts across cities of every size.
There’s a long way for motor vehicle thefts to fall to reach pre-pandemic levels, so another large decline in those crimes would be logical. Motor vehicle thefts likely fell upwards of 20 percent, in 2024, and there’s no reason to suspect that this trend will stop in 2025.
It’s very possible that the national reported property crime rate in 2025 will be the lowest ever reported, considering that the 2024 rate was probably pretty close.
Asher says it's significant that enough crime data is available with enough regularly to understand our current crime trends and extrapolate what they might mean for the next 12 months.
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