The News in DataTRENDING
№ 028 · OCT. 27, 2026

Americans Reported 19% Fewer Property Crimes And 25% Fewer Serious Violent Crimes To A Federal Survey In 2025 Than In 2024

The Bureau of Justice Statistics' survey of crime victims counts crimes whether or not anyone called the police, and its biggest declines were for car theft, burglary and aggravated assault.

By Samuel W. Bennett · Bureau of Justice Statistics data
−25%SERIOUS VIOLENT
CRIME RATE
−19%PROPERTY
CRIME RATE
The rate of serious violent crime, which excludes simple assault, fell 25%, from 9.9 to 7.4 victimizations per 1,000 people age 12 and older, from 2024 to 2025, according to preliminary estimates the Bureau of Justice Statistics released Oct. 26. The property crime rate fell 19%, from 138.0 to 111.2 per 1,000 households. The figures come from the National Crime Victimization Survey, which interviewed people in about 102,000 households and counts crimes whether or not they were reported to the police.
Car theft, burglary and aggravated assault fell mostAggravated assault, an attack with a weapon or one that causes serious injury, fell 31%, from 4.5 to 3.1 per 1,000 people. Motor vehicle theft fell 30%, from 8.9 to 6.3 per 1,000 households, and burglary or trespassing fell 25%, from 14.0 to 10.5. Other thefts, the most common crime in the survey, fell 19%, from 104.6 to 85.2 per 1,000 households. The bureau marks each of these declines as statistically significant, meaning they are larger than the survey's sampling error.
Some smaller changes may be chanceRobbery fell from 2.2 to 1.6 per 1,000 people, a 27% drop, but the bureau does not mark it as significant; robbery is rare enough that the survey captures few cases, which makes the estimate uncertain. Rape or sexual assault (3.2 to 2.8), simple assault (18.8 to 18.3) and vandalism (10.4 to 9.2 per 1,000 households) also fell without reaching significance, and so did the total violent crime rate, which includes simple assault (28.7 to 25.7). In all, the survey counted about 7.5 million violent victimizations and 14.9 million property victimizations in 2025.
Homicide fell too, in a separate countThe victimization survey can't measure homicide, because it relies on interviews with victims. A separate bureau report released Oct. 14 found that the homicide rate fell 17%, from 5.2 to 4.3 per 100,000 people.

What the data can't tell us

The 2025 figures are preliminary, and the bureau will publish final estimates in 2027. The survey was redesigned in 2025, and the bureau says its estimates can't be compared with the 1992 to 2024 series, so this is a two-year comparison rather than a long-term trend. Interviews were missed in October and November 2025 during the federal funding lapse, and the bureau adjusted the year's weights to make up for them. The survey also can't say why crime fell, so it doesn't settle whether any policy deserves credit or blame.

How we counted: all rates and percent changes are from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, "Preliminary Victimization Estimates From the National Crime Victimization Survey, 2025" (NCJ 312234, Oct. 26, 2026), by Jennifer L. Truman and Susannah N. Tapp. Violent crime rates are per 1,000 persons age 12 or older and property crime rates per 1,000 households; "significant" means the bureau marks the change as significant at the 95% confidence level. The survey completed 101,980 household interviews and 152,150 person interviews. Homicide: Bureau of Justice Statistics, "Homicide Victimization in the United States, 2025," Oct. 14, 2026. Sources: BJS, Oct. 26, 2026; BJS homicide report, Oct. 14, 2026. Download the data.