Opinion: Crime Is Falling—And It Has Nothing to Do with Trump

Key points:

• US crime rates have been declining for decades, despite public perception.
• The FBI report shows a 14.9% decline in murder rates in 2024.
• Public perception of rising crime is fueled by sensationalist news coverage.

When you tell people crime is down, one of two things usually happens. They either deny it outright or claim it’s somehow due to former President Donald Trump’s return to office in 2025.

Neither of these assertions is supported by the facts.

The reality is more grounded and less politically convenient. The United States is continuing a long-term decline in crime that began decades ago. That trend has resumed following the pandemic-era disruption, and the most recent national data confirm that violent and property crime rates fell significantly in 2024.

According to crime analyst Jeff Asher, “The FBI released its report on crime in the United States for 2024 today showing a 14.9 percent decline in murder with 4.4 percent and 8.1 percent drops in overall violent and property crime respectively.” The FBI data also show that the national murder rate in 2024 fell to 5 per 100,000 people—a level not seen since 2015—and is now lower than it was in 2019, the year before the COVID-19 pandemic.

To put that into perspective, murder in 2024 dropped nearly 15 percent compared to the previous year. That represents the fastest recorded single-year decline in U.S. history, outpacing even the dramatic 10 percent decrease seen in 2023. If these trends continue, Asher reports, “2025 will feature the lowest murder rate ever recorded.”

Asher’s analysis in his Substack publication Jeff-alytics makes clear that the decline is not a statistical illusion or the result of underreporting. “Crime fell in 2024 across every category and population group,” he wrote. “Seriously. Crime was down in all seven categories of crime across all 10 population groups that the FBI measures.”

This matters because there’s a common refrain, especially among political commentators and some conservative media outlets, that you can’t trust crime statistics. They argue that not all agencies report, or that people don’t report crimes to police, especially in communities of color. While it’s true that not every crime is reported, and not every law enforcement agency submits data consistently, that hasn’t stopped experts from identifying consistent national trends across multiple reliable data sources.

Crucially, murder data is not susceptible to the same underreporting problems that affect other crimes. As Asher puts it, “There simply remains zero evidence whatsoever to substantiate” the claim that murder is being underreported. Murders leave bodies, generate investigations, and are tracked by multiple systems, including the FBI, the CDC, and independent monitors like the Gun Violence Archive. All of them show substantial declines over the last two years.

Data from the CDC and the Real-Time Crime Index support the FBI’s findings. Both show that murder dropped by double digits in 2024, and preliminary figures for 2025 suggest the decline is accelerating. Through May 2025, murder is down an additional 20 percent, meaning the U.S. is on pace to set a new record low this year.

Despite these facts, public perception tells a very different story.

Polling from late 2023 showed that roughly three in four Americans believed crime was rising. This misperception persists across political affiliations and is fueled by sensationalist news coverage, viral videos, and political rhetoric. In fact, some politicians—including President Trump—have continued to frame urban America as being overrun by violence, using isolated incidents to paint a picture of national crisis.

But according to the FBI’s 2024 report, murder dropped 19 percent in cities with over one million people and also dropped 19 percent in small towns with fewer than 10,000 residents. Crime isn’t just down in one type of place—it’s down everywhere.

Property crime also saw a historic drop. The national rate declined by 8.1 percent, driven largely by a 19 percent drop in motor vehicle theft, the largest one-year decline on record. Although thefts had spiked in recent years—especially with the rise in social media coverage of “Kia Boys”-style car thefts—those trends have now reversed.

Overall, the 2024 property crime rate reached its lowest level since 1961. The violent crime rate was the lowest since 1969.

The claim that these declines are the result of the Trump administration’s policy changes in 2025 is logically and temporally flawed. These 2024 numbers largely reflect what happened before Trump returned to office. Asher points out that the FBI’s official estimates are for crimes reported in the previous calendar year, and the real-time indicators had already shown a decline well before Trump’s inauguration.

Moreover, while presidential rhetoric and federal policy can shape aspects of criminal justice, the overwhelming share of crime prevention, policing, and prosecution takes place at the local and state levels. There is no indication that any policy shift at the federal level triggered these recent declines.

Even aggravated assaults, which had remained stubbornly high compared to pre-pandemic levels, fell in 2024. Though the decrease was smaller—about 3 percent—it marked the beginning of a positive trend. And the Real-Time Crime Index suggests aggravated assault is continuing to decline sharply in 2025.

Participation in federal crime reporting has also rebounded. The FBI reported that 95.6 percent of the U.S. population was covered by an agency reporting data in 2024, putting national crime reporting nearly back to pre-2021 levels. The FBI is also now receiving data faster, with plans to begin releasing monthly updates.

These improvements in data infrastructure, coupled with independent crime trackers and public health surveillance, give analysts more confidence in their assessments than ever before.

Asher’s takeaway is simple and should be uncontroversial: “The nation’s murder rate has largely erased the post-COVID surge and was roughly around or [below] 2019’s level while reported violent and property crime were likely amongst the lowest rates recorded since the 1960s and 1970s.”

It is important to acknowledge that crime statistics, like all datasets, are imperfect. Underreporting exists. Data revisions are common. But those limitations do not negate what the aggregate picture tells us: crime is down, and not just a little—it’s down a lot.

Rather than twisting these numbers to suit political agendas, we should be asking more constructive questions. What’s driving the continued decline in murder and property crime? How can we replicate these successes? Where are resources best directed to sustain and expand this trend?

The answers won’t be found in fearmongering or false attribution. They’ll come from data, community engagement, public investment, and a rejection of simplistic narratives.

The American public deserves an honest assessment of where we stand. And right now, the truth is simple: crime is falling, and it’s not because of Donald Trump.

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