FBI 2025 Crime Report Shows 9.3% Drop in Violent Crime Nationwide
If the reported figures hold under independent review, the 2025 Uniform Crime Report would represent the largest single-year decline in recorded violent crime in the dataset's modern history, a...
Violent crime in the United States fell 9.3% in 2025 compared to the prior year, according to the FBI's 2025 Uniform Crime Report, which President Trump cited during public remarks on Friday, August 14, 2026. The report, published by the FBI under its Uniform Crime Reporting program, also recorded an 18.1% decline in murder, a 7.6% decline in rape, an 18.5% decline in robbery, a 7.2% decline in aggravated assault, and a 22.7% decline in motor vehicle theft, according to White House remarks as reported by the New York Post on August 14, 2026.
President Trump, in public statements tied to the report's release, characterized the figures as evidence of progress on public safety under his administration. The White House has not yet published a full transcript of those remarks as of the publication of this article. The FBI's Uniform Crime Report draws on voluntary data submissions from participating local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies. Participation rates and reporting methodology vary by jurisdiction and are documented in the annual report's technical appendix.
The UCR program transitioned from its legacy Summary Reporting System to the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) in recent years, a shift the FBI has noted can affect year-over-year comparability. The Bureau of Justice Statistics, a separate federal agency, maintains an independent crime measurement tool called the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which captures crimes not reported to police and provides a parallel data point for assessing national crime trends.
Congress has direct oversight and appropriations authority over the FBI and the Bureau of Justice Assistance, both of which fund local law enforcement initiatives. Crime statistics are routinely cited during House and Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on public safety grant allocations. The Department of Justice's full 2025 UCR data tables, which would include agency-level participation rates and methodology notes, are the public record that would allow independent verification of the figures cited by the White House. It is not yet known whether the full dataset has been posted to the FBI's Crime Data Explorer portal as of this report's publication.