The astounding drop in violent crime that started within the Nineteen Nineties and prolonged by the mid-2010s is without doubt one of the most essential — and most underappreciated — excellent news tales of current reminiscence. That made its reversal through the pandemic so worrying.
Within the first full yr of the pandemic, the FBI tallied 22,134 murders nationwide, up from 16,669 in 2019 — a rise of roughly 34 p.c, the sharpest one-year rise in trendy crime record-keeping. In 2021, Philadelphia alone recorded a file 562 homicides, whereas Baltimore skilled a near-record 337 murders. Between 2019 and 2020, the typical variety of weekly emergency division visits for gunshots elevated by 37 p.c, and largely stayed excessive by the next yr.
By the 2024 election, for the primary time in awhile, violent crime was a significant political problem within the US. A Pew survey that yr discovered that 58 p.c of People believed crime ought to be a high precedence for the president and Congress, up from 47 p.c in 2021.
And but even because the presidential marketing campaign was unfolding, the violent crime spike of the pandemic had already subsided — and crime charges have saved dropping. The FBI’s 2023 crime report discovered that homicide was down practically 12 p.c yr over yr, and in 2024 it saved falling to roughly 16,700 murders, on par with pre-pandemic ranges. The early numbers for 2025 are so promising that Jeff Asher, among the best unbiased analysts on crime, not too long ago requested in a chunk whether or not this yr might have the bottom homicide price in US historical past.
All of which raises two questions: What’s driving a lower in crime each bit as sharp because the pandemic-era improve? And why achieve this many people discover it so laborious to consider?
We shouldn’t leap to conclusions about this yr’s crime charges primarily based on the early information, particularly since we’re simply now starting the summer time, when violent crime nearly at all times rises. Crime information within the US can be patchy and sluggish — I can let you know what number of soybeans the US raised in March, however I can’t let you know how many individuals have been murdered within the US this yr.
However what we will inform appears to be like superb. The Actual-Time Crime Index, an instructional undertaking that collects crime information from greater than 380 police businesses overlaying practically 100 million folks, estimates there have been 1,488 murders within the US this yr by March, in comparison with an estimated 1,899 over the identical months final yr. That’s a lower of practically 22 p.c. Violent crime total is down by about 11 p.c. Motorized vehicle theft, which grew to become an epidemic through the pandemic, is down by over 26 p.c.
Peer right down to the native degree, and the image simply retains getting higher. In Baltimore, which The Wire made synonymous with violent, drug-related crime, homicides fell to 199 final yr, its finest exhibiting in over a decade. As of early Might, the town had 45 murders, down one other third from the identical interval final yr. Metropolis emergency rooms that have been as soon as filled with gunshot victims have gone quiet.
How a lot decrease might it go nationally? The file low murder price, not less than since nationwide information began being saved in 1960, is 4.45 per 100,000 in 2014. Thus far this yr, based on Asher, homicide is down in 25 of the 30 cities that reported probably the most murders in 2023. Asher argues that if the numbers maintain, “a ten p.c or extra decline in homicide nationally in 2025 would roughly tie 2014 for the bottom homicide price ever recorded.”
What’s behind the drop?
In brief: The pandemic led to an enormous improve in violent crime, and because the pandemic waned, so did the wave.
The closure of colleges through the pandemic, particularly in already higher-crime cities within the Northeast, meant much more younger males — who’re statistically extra more likely to be both perpetrators of violent crime or victims of it — on the streets. The closure of social companies left fewer sources for them to attract on; and the sheer stress of a once-in-a-lifetime well being disaster set everybody on edge. The homicide of George Floyd in spring 2020 led to a collapse in neighborhood belief in policing, which in flip appeared to result in much less aggressive policing altogether. Because the pandemic eased, although, these buffers got here again, offering a pure brake on violent crime.
However the authorities, from the nationwide degree right down to cities, additionally took direct actions to stem the flood of violence. The White Home beneath President Joe Biden poured a whole lot of thousands and thousands of {dollars} into neighborhood violence interruption packages, which intention to interrupt the cycle of retribution that may result in murder. Baltimore’s Group Violence Discount Technique has introduced collectively neighborhood teams and regulation enforcement to discourage the folks thought of almost certainly to get entangled in gun violence. And the erosion in police forces nationwide that occurred through the pandemic has largely stopped.
The scenario is much from good. Regardless that Floyd’s homicide triggered a nationwide reckoning round police violence, current information exhibits that police killings saved growing, partially as a result of concern of crime usually stopped momentum round reforms. Right here in New York, at the same time as total crime on the subways has fallen to historic lows, felony assaults on the trains have saved rising, fueling fears of lawlessness.
Why can’t we consider it?
As Memorial Day weekend marks the beginning of summer time, the following few months will inform whether or not the pandemic was really only a blip within the long-term discount in violent crime. However what we will say is most individuals don’t appear to note the constructive traits. An October 2024 ballot by Gallup discovered that 64 p.c of People believed there was extra crime nationwide than the yr earlier than, despite the fact that by that point in 2024, the post-pandemic crime drop was nicely beneath method.
However such outcomes aren’t stunning. Some of the dependable ends in polling is that in the event you ask People whether or not crime is rising, they’ll say sure. Astonishingly, in 23 of 27 nationwide surveys carried out by Gallup since 1993, People reported that they thought crime nationwide was rising — despite the fact that most of these surveys have been carried out through the lengthy crime decline.
Crime is without doubt one of the finest examples we’ve of dangerous information bias. By definition, a homicide is an outlier occasion that grabs our consideration, inevitably main the nightly native information. Typically, as through the pandemic, that bias can match actuality. But when we fail to regulate to what’s truly occurring round us — not simply what we assume is occurring — it gained’t simply make us assume our cities are extra harmful than they are surely. It’ll sap power for the reforms that may actually make a distinction.
A model of this story initially appeared within the Good Information publication. Join right here!