Preliminary Justice Department data show violent and property crime rates fell significantly in 2025, with serious violent crime down 25 percent and property crime down 19 percent compared to 2024, according to findings obtained by Breitbart News.
The estimates, compiled through the National Crime Victimization Survey, point to about 669,000 fewer victimizations involving rape or sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated assault than the year before. Households also reported roughly 3.5 million fewer property crimes over the same period.
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics report, the rate of violent victimization excluding simple assault fell to 7.4 per 1,000 residents age 12 and older, down from 9.9 in 2024. The estimated number of those victimizations dropped from about 2.83 million to 2.16 million.
Robbery victimizations fell from 626,420 to 453,870 — about 172,000 fewer incidents — as the robbery rate declined from 2.2 to 1.6 per 1,000 residents.
When simple assaults are included, total violent victimizations fell from 8.2 million to roughly 7.5 million, pushing the overall rate from 28.7 to 25.7 per 1,000 people. Researchers noted that change was not statistically significant. Simple assaults made up the bulk of violent offenses, at 5.33 million cases.
Property crime fell across every major category tracked. Households reported 14.89 million property victimizations in 2025, down from 18.37 million in 2024, lowering the rate from 138 to 111.2 per 1,000 households.
Burglary and trespassing cases dropped by about 460,000 to 1.41 million, a 25 percent rate decline to 10.5 per 1,000 households. Vehicle thefts fell from 1.19 million to 841,130, a reduction of roughly 349,000 vehicles and about a 30 percent drop in the rate. General household theft fell 19 percent, from 13.93 million to 11.41 million cases.
How the Survey Works
The Census Bureau conducts the survey annually on behalf of BJS, interviewing victims directly to capture crimes that never appear in police records. It does not include homicides, since it relies on victim interviews, but it does capture attempted, threatened, and completed offenses.
The survey’s findings align in direction with separate FBI data showing declines in crimes reported to police, though the victimization survey recorded steeper drops. Police-reported aggravated assaults, for example, fell 7.2 percent in FBI figures compared to a 31 percent decline in the survey data.
The DOJ report cautions that because the two systems measure crime in different ways, the gap between their figures does not by itself prove a change in how often victims report crimes to police.
Context: Enforcement Push Under Trump
The declines occurred during President Donald Trump’s first year back in office, a period marked by expanded border enforcement and stepped-up federal targeting of violent offenders, drug trafficking organizations, and illegal firearms.
The White House reported in January 2026 that more than 400,000 immigrants in the country illegally and charged with or convicted of crimes were deported during Trump’s first year in office. Administration officials have credited the enforcement push, along with a steep drop in illegal border crossings, with helping shift national public safety trends, saying heightened enforcement created a deterrent effect among undocumented immigrants who remained in the country.
Federal agencies reported increased enforcement activity over the same period. Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee in September 2025, FBI Director Kash Patel said agents had seized more than 1,600 kilograms of fentanyl — a 25 percent increase over 2024 — while disrupting approximately 1,800 gangs and criminal enterprises. Patel linked falling crime numbers to a strategy of moving agents out of headquarters and into high-density areas.
The ATF separately reported a 57 percent increase in federal criminal charges filed under six firearms-trafficking statutes in 2025, which the agency attributed to focused enforcement against repeat violent offenders, criminal organizations, and illegal gun networks.
Preliminary Numbers, Limited Comparisons
BJS described the findings as preliminary, with final 2025 estimates not expected until 2027. The bureau fully adopted a redesigned version of the survey in January 2025 and used comparable redesigned-survey estimates for its 2024 comparison figures. BJS said the new estimates cannot be directly compared with the older survey series, which limits any claims about how this year’s decline ranks against historical data going back decades.
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