American violent crime in 2025 dropped to rates not seen since Eisenhower was president. But FBI data anomalies are persistent, so take the 2025 measurement with a shaker of salt until we have a full year of catch-up reporting by local agencies. Regardless, things are better. It behooves us to try to understand why. Take-aways Large cities saw significant declines in violence and gun violence while smaller ones did not. Within the large agencies, focusing on gangs and improving police agency staffing were the two most contributive causes. Our perpetual pesky note on data quality Criminology data has always had exceptions, but we are still weeding our way through the post-2021 FBI conversion from their old Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) system to the newer National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). Though vastly improved from the switchover year, there is still frequent underreporting and misreporting. In some cases this makes the 2025 … Continue reading →