By Austin Alonzo
Crime is dropping across the board in the United States, according to new statistics released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
On Aug. 5, the FBI released its annual Reported Crimes in the Nation statistics. This data demonstrated a broad decline in crime across the United States in 2024.
According to new federal data, violent crime fell by 4.5 percent nationwide in 2024 compared to 2023 estimates. Property crime dropped more sharply, by 8.1 percent, during the same period.
The agency also highlighted a 14.9 percent year-over-year decrease in murder and non-negligent manslaughter.
In a blog post about the 2024 figures, Jeff Asher, a criminal justice data analyst and co-founder of AH Datalytics, said reported violent and property crime rates fell to their lowest levels since the 1960s in 2024.
The FBI defines violent crime to include murder, non-negligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault.
The report, according to the FBI, compiles data from over 16,000 law enforcement agencies, or about 86 percent of all agencies, across the country. It is based on more than 14 million reported criminal offenses in 2024 that were submitted to the bureau through the National Incident-Based Reporting System and the Summary Reporting System.
In the past, critics have said the federal crime statistics are based on flawed or incomplete data, which makes comparing current and past trends more difficult. As a candidate, President Donald Trump said in 2024 that figures that showed a decline in crime were “fake.”
“It’s a lie. It’s fake news,” Trump said in a 2024 interview with Time magazine. “The FBI fudged the numbers.”
Asher said in his blog that the statistics are estimates based on reported crimes. Those estimates are likely to be updated in the following year’s report.
“Not every crime is reported to law enforcement, and not every agency reports crime to the FBI every year,” Asher said.
Inside the Statistics
As a whole, violent crime fell sharply in 2024 based on the statistics.
Along with the drop in murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, rape fell by an estimated 5.2 percent, robbery by 8.9 percent, and aggravated assault by 3 percent between 2023 and 2024.
Asher said the decline in the murder rate was “the fastest drop in murder ever recorded.”
The national murder rate for 2024 was roughly 26 percent lower than in 2020—when crime spiked nationally—and near its lowest level since 2015. The decline was observed across all population groups, Asher said.
Property crime—including burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson—fell by 8.1 percent between 2023 and 2024, according to federal statistics. This is the steepest annual decrease ever recorded by the FBI, Asher said. Motor vehicle theft dropped by 18.6 percent. Burglary fell by 8.6 percent.
The FBI’s hate crime statistics, gathered from 16,419 agencies covering 95.1 percent of the population, showed a 1.5 percent decrease in reported incidents.
In total, law enforcement agencies reported 11,679 hate crime incidents and 13,683 related offenses motivated by bias related to race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, disability, gender, and gender identity.
The federal crime statistics are consistent with independent analysis conducted by the nonprofit group Council on Criminal Justice. In a January report, the group said it observed a steep drop in both homicide and other types of violent crime. The Council, however, noted that shoplifting and motor vehicle theft remain elevated.
In February, the Major Cities Chiefs Association, an independent law enforcement group representing the police departments of the largest cities in the United States and Canada, issued a report that also showed an across-the-board decline in violent crime in the United States from 2023 to 2024.
Both the Council on Criminal Justice and the Major City Chiefs Association issued new reports over the summer analyzing crime statistics in the first half of 2025. According to those reports, the rate of violent crime continues to drop this year.
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