Did The Rate Of Violent Crime Really Decline 25 Percent In 2025?
The data below is not just a finding; it's the result of a redesigned National Crime Victimization Survey with complicated research considerations. National Crime Victimization Survey is the nation’s primary source of information on criminal victimization occurring in the United States. This is not FBI data based on crimes reported to law enforcement. The rate of violent crime excluding simple assaults declined 25 percent, from 9.9 per 1,000 persons age 12 or older in 2024 to 7.4 per 1,000 in 2025, per a preliminary report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). Property crime also decreased. The key question is how readers should interpret a 25 percent decrease in 2025 in rates of violent crime. Feel free to stop here, but if you're interested in the redesign of the National Crime Victimization Survey and how they got to the 25 percent reduction, then read on. Dozens of national media outlets are reporting a 25 percent reduction in rates of violent crime in 2025 based on the new BJS report. Are they correct? See the copy from CBS News. So when a news outlet simply says that “violent crime declined 25%,” readers may reasonably assume that the finding covers all violent victimization. A more accurate description is that BJS's preliminary estimate shows a 25% decline in serious violent victimization, excluding simple assault. Simple assault is the largest crime category. News coverage that omits the exclusion of simple assault risks giving readers an overly broad impression of what BJS found. The redesigned NCVS uses revised questions and expanded prompts intended to identify criminal victimization more effectively. BJS expected the new instrument to produce larger estimates in many categories. The National Crime Victimization Survey states that rates of violent crime increased 44 percent (based on findings from independent crime analysts) in 2022 and rates of violent crime remained essentially unchanged in 2023 and 2024. See below. Now, we have a significant decline in rates of NCVS violent crime for 2025. But that finding needs a lot of explanation.
