Violent crime is continuing to decline across many of America’s largest cities, with new data showing substantial drops in homicides, robberies and other serious offenses during President Donald Trump’s second term.
According to data cited by Axios and compiled by the Major Cities Chiefs Association, violent crime declined across 66 U.S. cities between 2025 and 2026. Homicides fell 17.2%, robberies dropped 16.6%, rapes declined 6.2%, and aggravated assaults were down 5.7%. Altogether, roughly 14,200 fewer violent crimes were reported.
The White House has pointed to those numbers as evidence that the administration’s public-safety policies are working.
“President Trump promised to make America safe again — and the data proves he is delivering faster and more decisively than any administration in history,” the White House said in a statement.
John Lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center and a former senior adviser for research and statistics at the U.S. Department of Justice, told The Washington Stand that if the current trend holds, the national murder rate could fall to a historic low.
Lott estimated that the murder rate could decline to about 3.3 per 100,000 people. He said the previous low before the Trump administration was roughly 4.5 per 100,000.
Several major cities have recorded especially large declines.
Washington, D.C., reported a 43.9% drop in homicides during the first half of 2026 compared with the same period in 2025. Memphis saw homicides fall 43.7%, while Houston recorded a 38.3% decline. Philadelphia’s homicide total fell 27.2%.
Some smaller major-city markets posted even sharper drops. Newark reported a 64.7% decline in homicides, while Raleigh saw murders fall 63.6%.
Lott argues that the most effective way to reduce violent crime is to increase the likelihood that offenders will be caught and prosecuted.
“If you want to reduce crime, you have to make it risky for criminals to go and commit crime,” he said. That, he argued, requires higher arrest rates, higher conviction rates and tougher sentencing.
The national trend has not been uniform. A handful of cities reported increases in homicide.
Honolulu, for example, saw homicides rise from seven to 13, an increase of 85.7%. San Diego recorded an 81.3% increase, with homicides rising from 16 to 29.
Even with those exceptions, the broader numbers show a sizable overall decline in violent crime.
Lott credits at least part of that improvement to changes in federal law-enforcement priorities under Trump. He pointed to increased FBI arrests and more aggressive prosecution by U.S. attorneys.
According to Lott, the FBI made roughly twice as many arrests in 2025 as it did during the final year of the Biden administration in 2024. He also argued that federal prosecutors have become more willing to bring criminal cases against people arrested by local law enforcement.
Washington, D.C., is one example he cited. Lott said the U.S. attorney’s office during the Biden administration brought criminal charges against only about one-third of people arrested by police in certain cases. Under Trump, he said that figure has risen substantially.
Lott also tied the recent decline in violent crime to changes in immigration enforcement.
He argued that the rise in violent crime during the Biden years coincided with a historically large increase in illegal immigration. Citing Bureau of Justice Statistics data, Lott said felony violent crime increased sharply during that period.
Under Trump, the administration has pursued a much more aggressive deportation policy. Lott said a large majority of those deported have criminal records, arguing that removing repeat offenders from the country can have a measurable effect on public safety.
The relationship between immigration and crime remains heavily debated, and national crime trends are influenced by many factors, including local policing, prosecution policies, demographic changes, economic conditions and changes in criminal behavior. Still, Lott maintains that tougher federal enforcement has played an important role in the current decline.
He also points to another factor that receives far less attention: concealed carry.
According to a McLaughlin and Associates survey cited by Lott, the share of American voters who say they carry a concealed firearm has recently increased from 13% to 15%.
Lott has long argued that armed citizens can deter certain crimes because offenders face greater uncertainty about whether a potential victim can defend himself or herself.
“If you want to reduce crime, you have to have it so that the people who are the most likely victims be the ones who carry,” he said.
That remains a deeply contested argument in the broader debate over gun policy, but it reflects Lott’s larger view that crime falls when the perceived cost and risk of committing an offense rises.
For the Trump administration, the falling crime numbers offer a politically valuable contrast with the disorder that dominated public debate in many cities earlier in the decade.
The strongest case for the administration is not that every city is safer or that every category of crime is declining. The data clearly show exceptions. Rather, the broader trend across dozens of major cities is moving in the same direction: fewer homicides, fewer robberies, fewer assaults and fewer violent crimes overall.
If that trajectory continues through the rest of 2026, the United States could finish the year with one of its lowest murder rates in decades, and possibly, according to Lott’s projection, the lowest on record.
For voters who rank crime and public safety among their top concerns, that would give the administration a powerful argument heading into the next election cycle: whatever mix of federal enforcement, local policing and broader social changes is driving the decline, Americans in many cities are experiencing significantly less violent crime than they were just a year ago.