Remarkable big US cities homicide data through Q1 of 2025
In this post a couple months ago, I flagged some “real-time” police data showing positive early 2025 homicide trends in some big cities. I cautioned at that time that it was way too early into 2025 to assume that the positive homicide declines in 2023 and 2024 would continue into 2025. But now, in mid April 2025, we have police data from a number of big US cities for the full first quarter of 2025, and the postive homicide news is persisting. Indeed, as detailed below, homicide declines in many major cities are truly remarkable:
New York City police reporting YTD homicides down 30% so far in 2025
Los Angeles police reporting YTD homicides down 33% so far in 2025
Chicago police reporting YTD homicides down 25% so far in 2025
Philadelphia police reporting YTD homicides down 30% so far in 2025
Dallas police reporting YTD homicides down 34% so far in 2025
Jacksonville police reporting YTD homicides down 14% so far in 2025
St. Louis police reporting YTD homicides down 44% so far in 2025
New Orleans police reporting YTD homicides down 35% so far in 2025
Baltimore police reporting YTD homicides down 24% so far in 2025
Denver police reporting YTD homicides down 56% so far in 2025
Washington DC police reporting YTD homicides down 9% so far in 2025
San Antonio police reporting Q1 homicide down 37% in 2025
Charlotte police reporting Q1 homicide down 37% in 2025
Columbus police reporting Q1 homicide down 30% in 2025
As I have cautioned before, these data from a bunch of big cities over the first few months of the year may not prove to be at all representative of what could be going on elsewhere in the US or what could develop and change throughout the rest of 2025. Still, it is hard not to be quite encouraged by these data, especially since they come on the heels of already notable homicide declines over the last few years. If the trends in these big cities provide to be representative of nationwide realities and if they continue through the year, 2025 might be end up with one of the lowest years homicide rates in the US in all of recent history.
UPDATE on April 17: This morning I received an email from the Real-Time Crime Index folks with this encouraging report on their compilation of data through the end of February 2025:
The Real-Time Crime Index (RTCI)’s newest update is now live with the largest sample yet! The RTCI is identifying national crime trends in both violent and property crimes across a large sample of cities and county agencies through February 2025. The full nationwide sample for February 2025 consists of 381 agencies covering over 96 million people with data from January 2017 through February 2025.
Murder is down 20.9 percent in the full nationwide sample through February 2025 with a 13.7 percent decline in violent crime and a 15.9 percent decline in property crime. Every category of crime measured by the RTCI is showing a decline throughout 2024 and leading into 2025, ranging from a 10.3 percent decline in aggravated assault to a 29.0 percent decline in motor vehicle thefts.