US on track to have historically low number of homicides in 2026, report
says
[July 23, 2026]
By SAFIYAH RIDDLE
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Data collected from 30 American cities showed an 18%
decrease in the homicide rate from 2025 compared to the same period in
2026, translating to about 215 fewer homicides this year, according to a
new report from the independent Council on Criminal Justice.
Should the trend continue, it would push the annual homicide rate to the
lowest levels in over a century once final numbers are released at the
end of the year.
The report, released Thursday, tracked 13 crimes and recorded drops in
nine of those categories, including carjackings, residential burglary
and aggravated assaults. There was a small jump in shoplifting, domestic
violence incidents, sexual assaults and drug offenses over the same
period between 2025 and 2026, the report showed.
Experts say the broadly positive changes are exceeding expectations,
improving on baseline crime rates from before 2020 and the COVID-19
pandemic, which brought historic surges in violence.
Democrats and Republicans across the country have tried to capitalize on
the positive developments during a competitive midterm election year.
But the trends documented in the report carry through in cities with
leadership across the political spectrum.
That suggests the most significant factors contributing to the
improvements are taking place nationwide and are not specific to a
single local public safety measure, said Adam Gelb, the president and
CEO of the Council on Criminal Justice, a nonpartisan think tank for
criminal justice policy and research.
“Murder and other crime rates are falling across the map in cities with
different political leadership, different housing and economic
conditions, different policing and prosecution and violence reduction
strategies and different levels of federal enforcement activity,” Gelb
said.
The council collects data from police departments and other law
enforcement sources. Some of the report categories include data from as
many as 36 cities, while others include fewer cities in their totals
because of tracking gaps or differences in definitions for specific
crimes.
Notably, Gelb said that a significant number of violent crimes were less
deadly: There was a 23% drop in the lethality of the crimes committed,
which is measured by the share of serious violent crime that is fatal.
Many of the non-violent crimes tracked in the report also saw declines,
including a 13% drop in residential burglaries year over year and a 50%
drop in burglaries compared to pre-pandemic levels in 2019. At the same
time, reported shoplifting bucked the trends of other property crimes,
showing a 5% increase. And while there was a small increase in drug
offenses, those were still lower than pre-pandemic levels.
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Roughly a third of the 30 sampled cities defied average homicide
rate declines across the country, recording an increase in deadly
violence from the first half of 2025 to the same period in 2026.
That includes Norfolk, Virginia, which saw a 64% increase in
homicides, and San Francisco, which saw a 55% increase. The number
of cities that saw a longer-term increase was far smaller: Only
Norfolk, Austin, Pittsburgh and Minneapolis experienced more
homicides in 2026 than in the same period in 2019.
There are many factors that could impact why a location sees
increases or decreases in certain crimes when another doesn't,
according to John Roman, director of the Center on Public Safety and
Justice at the National Opinion Research Center from the University
of Chicago.
Roman said that conservative politicians affiliated with President
Donald Trump will point to intensified immigration crackdowns and
the deployment of the National Guard in cities like Los Angeles and
Memphis, whereas liberal politicians might point to former
Democratic President Joe Biden's public safety legislation that
strengthened background checks on firearm sales.
But ultimately, Roman said, the best explanations transcend specific
administrations. That ranges from decreased drug usage and therefore
fewer purchases from illegal markets, which are often linked to
violence, to an influx of federal funding for localities after the
pandemic that was spent on social programming.
Those programs, Roman said, often funded jobs like teachers and
social workers who primarily work with “young people who are the
highest risk of violence and victimization.”
While both Gelb and Roman concurred that there wasn't a single
reason, Gelb said the outcomes should be studied for future insights
and celebrated.
“This is one of the most significant public safety developments in
decades. It means lives are being saved, families are spared trauma
and communities are regaining stability,” Gelb said.
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