NEW ORLEANS — Claims that crime in the United States has fallen to an “all-time low” have gained traction in recent months, but independent analysts caution that such language may not accurately reflect the available data.
According to Jeff Asher, an independent crime analyst and reporter, the drop in crime is real, although the media, especially television news, would have suggested otherwise. Asher argues that 2025 is not the lowest crime has been in 70 years and states that the utilization of jargon labeling crime levels as at an “all-time low” is not representative of the actual data.
The Real Time Crime Index (RTCI) states, “Crime statistics are inexact, but sampling agencies in this way is a proven method for accurately measuring trends while waiting for national crime estimates published each year.” Not every agency is included in the RTCI, and the data only shows a 12-month period of reported data.
The RTCI chart does not represent a steep decline from 2024 to 2025 in violent crimes.
Moreover, crimes that are not reported cannot be included by the RTCI. Therefore, according to the RTCI, the index has a margin of error, as do the agencies that report the crimes.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Crime Reporting Program (CRP) has a three-month delay on crime statistics, and the decline present in the overall statistics is representative of November 2024 through October 2025 in reported crimes. The report for 2025 includes homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assault.
According to Asher, “that’s important because when we talk about a 20 percent drop in murder in 2025 we are referencing a 20 percent decline relative to the FBI’s revised murder rate, not the current one that they released last year.”
Asher examines that discrepancy by noting that the initial report for 2023 listed 19,353 homicides and later increased the total to 19,902, with actual totals released the following year.
The White House Washington utilized data released in January 2026 from the Council on Criminal Justice (CCJ). The data was composed of 33 major sample cities, not the entirety of the United States like the RTCI.
Asher states, “There’s a good bit of appropriate analytic uncertainty in the CCJ report that got lost on the other side of the report.” The CCJ describes itself as a nonpartisan and independent organization of legislative leaders and individuals impacted by incarceration that analyzes how the criminal justice system affects Americans.
The CCJ also clarifies in its reporting that, “When nationwide data for jurisdictions of all sizes is reported by the FBI later this year, there is a strong possibility that homicides in 2025 will drop to about 4.0 per 100,000 residents.” The statistics show a probable outcome that homicides will drop below the average rate, but it is not certain.
The Trace reports that Donald Trump’s administration cut funding to government programs that would decrease and prevent crime from recurring, writing, “The largest chunk of the canceled grants—worth $169 million—funded nonprofit violence intervention and community safety programs.” According to the report, more than $800 million in funding has been cut from violence prevention programs, which could impact which crimes increase or decrease in 2026.
Claiming crime is at an all-time low in history may justify cutting funding to nonprofit organizations such as Californians for Justice and Fresh Lifelines for Youth (FLY), which intervene in the early stages of criminalization for underprivileged youth. Rather than increasing funding to government agencies that criminalize individuals, increasing funding to programs that serve communities can be just as effective.
According to FLY, lower-income communities rely on the program to provide alternatives to gangs and other forms of illegal activities. Underfunding could displace entire generations and continue the school-to-prison pipeline for youth, and it costs more to incarcerate a young person than to put them through college.
While violence prevention programs are decreasing in funding, Department of Homeland Security funding increased in 2025. The Trace reported that Americans are seeing an unprecedented amount of violence against citizens in the media, stating, “We have found another 41 incidents in which agents held bystanders, protesters, or other people at gunpoint under questionable circumstances. Five people—including Pretti—were killed in these incidents.”
The Trace also states, “Yet gun violence remains endemic. At least 40,000 people were shot in 2025 — more than 110 people a day across the country,” while murder has declined and gun violence has decreased in most states, the overall trend of gun deaths cannot be determined with certainty.
According to Asher, if the actual crime rate in 2025 cannot be definitively determined, analytics cannot fully represent its decline.
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