Two midyear analyses show violent crime falling across many large U.S. cities in 2026, with homicides, robberies, carjackings and vehicle thefts declining sharply even as several cities and crime categories moved in the opposite direction.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Homicides fell sharply across dozens of major U.S. cities during the first half of 2026, extending a decline that began several years ago and raising the possibility that the national murder rate could reach another historic low.
A Major Cities Chiefs Association survey covering 66 U.S. law enforcement agencies recorded 2,162 homicides during the first six months of the year, down from 2,611 during the same period in 2025. That represents a 17.2% decline.
Other violent offenses also decreased in the MCCA data. Robberies were down 16.6%, rapes declined 6.2% and aggravated assaults fell 5.7%.
The association cautioned that its numbers are preliminary and should not be treated as final FBI crime statistics.
A separate Council on Criminal Justice analysis released last month found a similar pattern among 30 large cities, where homicides declined 18% compared with the first half of 2025. The reduction amounted to 215 fewer killings.
Those cities recorded homicide levels 51% below their most recent peak in 2022 and 31% below the first half of 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic and the nationwide unrest that followed in 2020.
The figures suggest the downward movement that began in the second half of 2022 has continued beyond simply reversing the pandemic-era increase in violent crime.
The Council on Criminal Justice previously estimated that the national homicide rate for 2025 could fall to approximately 4.0 killings per 100,000 people, which would potentially represent the lowest level found in law enforcement or public health records dating back to at least 1900.
Continued improvement through June leaves open the possibility that 2026 could establish another low.
“Murder and other crime rates are falling across the map,” CCJ President and CEO Adam Gelb said.
Gelb noted that declines are occurring in jurisdictions governed under widely different political leadership and criminal justice policies, suggesting “macro-level forces are exerting enormous influence as well.”
Homicide was only one part of the broader decline identified by CCJ.
Nine of the 13 offenses examined by the organization were lower during the first half of 2026 than during the same period last year.
Robberies declined 17%, gun assaults were down 6% and carjackings dropped 47%.
Carjackings have now fallen 73% from their 2023 peak, while motor vehicle theft is 51% below its 2023 high.
Several cities recorded especially large drops in killings.
Houston reported 95 homicides through June, compared with 154 during the first six months of 2025. Memphis fell from 119 killings to 67, while Washington, D.C., declined from 82 to 46.
Philadelphia recorded 83 homicides, down from 114, and Baltimore reported 50, compared with 66 during the corresponding period last year.
The trend was not uniform across the country.
Chicago recorded 211 homicides during the first half of 2026, up from 199 a year earlier. San Francisco rose from 11 killings to 16, while San Diego reported 29 compared with 16 during the first six months of 2025.
CCJ similarly found homicide reductions in 21 of the 30 cities included in that portion of its analysis, while eight experienced increases.
Some other offenses also moved higher.
Domestic violence increased 8% among the smaller group of cities that supplied data for that category, while reported sexual assaults rose 3%.
Researchers cautioned that the broad decline cannot be attributed from the available data to a particular president, mayor, criminal justice policy or policing strategy.
“This report is not evidence of the success or failure of any policy or practice,” CCJ researchers Ernesto Lopez and Bobby Boxerman wrote.
“It simply documents recent crime trends from a sample of large U.S. cities.”
Possible explanations identified by researchers include changes in policing and other criminal justice practices, technological developments and wider social or cultural changes.
CCJ plans to bring together researchers from multiple academic disciplines in September to examine potential causes behind the sustained homicide decline.
Both sets of findings also have limits.
The Major Cities Chiefs Association survey reflects participating large police agencies rather than every law enforcement jurisdiction in the United States.
CCJ’s broader analysis includes 36 cities selected in part because they release timely monthly crime statistics, and the organization cautioned that those jurisdictions do not necessarily represent the country as a whole.
The figures in both analyses remain preliminary and could be revised as additional crime data becomes available.
Original article
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