“Crime within the U.S. fell in 2025. Will the pattern proceed?” ran on the Christmas Eve version of Nationwide Public Radio’s Morning Version. However after months of protection bashing President Trump for sending troops into cities to battle crime (i.e. “Do Trump’s D.C. strikes echo an authoritarian playbook?”) Trump will get no credit score in reporter Meg Anderson’s good-news story about a problem he ran and gained on — combating crime.
Anderson’s written story (the broadcast model was briefer and considerably much less slanted) reversed the polarity of actuality, pointing to the falling crimes charges as in the event that they by some means discredited Trump’s actions and rhetoric, versus the drops exhibiting Trump’s tough-on-crime coverage bearing fruit.
Crime fell throughout a lot of the U.S. in 2025 — within the Midwest, the South, the Northeast and the West, in large cities and small cities, and in purple and blue states.
The variety of murders noticed an enormous drop — about 20% fewer than in 2024, in keeping with the Actual Time Crime Index, which makes use of native crime information from practically 600 jurisdictions across the nation. Different violent crimes, together with rape, theft and aggravated assault, additionally declined, as did property crimes like motorized vehicle theft and burglaries.
“It is the most effective yr in crime I’ve seen in 27 years on this enterprise,” says John Roman, who directs the Middle on Public Security & Justice at NORC, a analysis group on the College of Chicago.
NPR spoke to researchers who research tendencies in crime, policing and legal justice in regards to the numbers. Listed here are a few of their primary takeaways this yr — and what they count on in 2026.
Underneath the subhead “What triggered the drop in murders?” there was no point out of even the chance that Trump’s acts of sending within the Nationwide Guard to crime-ridden Democrat-run cities may have had a constructive impact, or mass deportations. As a substitute they cited Covid.
A part of the rationale, researchers say, is that the nation is over the hump of the pandemic.
Throughout 2020 and 2021, murder charges surged throughout the U.S. Now the nation is solely on the opposite aspect of that surge.
Trump solely appeared within the story to have his rhetoric and anti-crime acts discredited below the subhead “Rhetoric vs. actuality.”
Some researchers pointed to a disconnect between the widespread lower in crime, and President Trump’s depictions of crime this yr, significantly in Democrat-led cities.
Trump referred to as Chicago the “most harmful metropolis on this planet” and mentioned Washington, D.C., had been “overtaken by violent gangs.” The 2 cities, and others, finally turned the main target of federal regulation enforcement surges aimed toward cracking down on crime and immigration.
Chicago and D.C. have traditionally had increased crime charges in comparison with many U.S. cities, however they’ve additionally each seen crime falling lately, like a lot of the remainder of the nation.
Utilizing the specter of crime to justify crackdowns ought to make Individuals cautious, mentioned Tahir Duckett, who directs the Middle for Improvements in Neighborhood Security at Georgetown Regulation.
“That is a darkish story that now we have heard advised in historical past,” he mentioned, “justifications for repression of civil rights, justifications for seizing extra authority.”
Is not it potential that Trump’s acts triggered the drop in crime? NPR would not even take into account the thought. Sending within the Guard is “repression.”
Anderson’s pessimism unfold into the long run setting the groundwork in charge Trump’s authorities for a criminal offense spike in 2026 (after not crediting him for the 2025 drop) by way of an unlabeled liberal supply:
Authorities funding cuts fear specialists like Ames Grawert, senior counsel within the justice program at the Brennan Middle for Justice.
Whereas NPR handled the correlation between the autumn in crime and Trump coverage as a coincidence not value noting, the Each day Caller had a completely different take on the identical information:
President Donald Trump has made combating violent crime a high precedence in his second time period. In August, he issued an government order declaring a criminal offense emergency in Washington, .D.C, and ordered the Nationwide Guard deployed to assist crack down. The town skilled practically a 28% drop in murders this yr, in keeping with the RTCI.
