Data culled from 30 American cities showed an 18% reduction in the homicide rate from 2025 compared to the same period in 2026, rendering to about 215 fewer homicides this year, according to a new report from the independent Council on Criminal Justice, a Washington-based non-partisan think tank.
Catholics for Catholics
Homicides are going down in America.
Facts gathered from 30 American cities showed an 18% reduction in the homicide rate from 2025 compared to the same period in 2026, resulting in about 215 less homicides this year, according to a new report from the independent Council on Criminal Justice, a Washington-based non-partisan think tank.
According to a story by Newsmax, 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.
Released Thursday, the Independent Council on Criminal Justice’s report followed 13 crimes and recorded drops in nine of those categories, including aggravated assaults, carjackings and residential burglary. 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.
The experts say the mostly positive changes are surpassing expectations, improving on baseline crime rates from before 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic, which brought historic surges in violence.
Homicides and other crime rates are dropping across the nation 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.
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