According to official FBI data released on Friday, the United States experienced a 9.7% decrease in violent crime during 2025. This figure represents the largest annual decline recorded since the FBI initiated its national crime estimation process in 1936. The report suggests that the downward trend in violent crime, which began following the COVID-19 pandemic, accelerated significantly throughout the last year.

The decline was observed across communities of all sizes, indicating a broad geographic shift rather than one isolated to specific regions or urban centers. While the FBI report provides the official annual figures, separate analyses of major city crime data from the first half of 2025 suggest that this downward trajectory has continued into the current year.

It is important to note that historical comparisons of FBI crime data involve certain complexities. For instance, the 2021 data set was based on estimates due to a lower-than-usual number of law enforcement agencies submitting reports to the federal database. While the 2025 data shows a historic drop, the methodology for data collection remains a critical factor in how these statistics are interpreted by researchers and policymakers. The report confirms that the reduction in violent crime is not merely a return to pre-pandemic levels but a sharp acceleration in the decline of reported incidents.