The U.S. violent crime rate by year shows a long downward trend: from a modern peak of 758.2 per 100,000 people in 1991 to 370.8 per 100,000 in 2024, a drop of more than half over roughly three decades.1Bureau of Justice Statistics. Crime Known to Law Enforcement, 2024 The decline was not smooth. A sharp pandemic-era spike in 2020 temporarily reversed the trend before crime resumed falling through 2024.
Year-by-Year Violent Crime Rate
The figures below show the national violent crime rate per 100,000 residents. Rates from 1991 through 1993 come from the FBI’s historical summary table, rates from 2000 through 2019 come from a separate FBI table covering that span, and the 2023 and 2024 figures come from the Bureau of Justice Statistics.2Federal Bureau of Investigation. Table 1 – Crime in the United States 1991-20103Federal Bureau of Investigation. Table 1 – Crime in the United States 2000-20191Bureau of Justice Statistics. Crime Known to Law Enforcement, 2024
- 1991: 758.2
- 1992: 757.7
- 1993: 747.1
- 2000: 506.5
- 2001: 504.5
- 2002: 494.4
- 2003: 475.8
- 2004: 463.2
- 2005: 469.0
- 2006: 479.3
- 2007: 471.8
- 2008: 458.6
- 2009: 431.9
- 2010: 404.5
- 2011: 387.1
- 2012: 387.8
- 2013: 369.1
- 2014: 361.6
- 2015: 373.7
- 2016: 386.6
- 2017: 383.8
- 2018: 370.4
- 2019: 366.7
- 2023: 393.9
- 2024: 370.8
Why 2020 Through 2022 Are Missing
Data for 2020 through 2022 is not listed above because the FBI’s transition to a new reporting system in 2021 left major gaps. Only about 65% of the U.S. population was covered by agencies submitting data that year, making national estimates for 2021 and surrounding years less reliable than the figures in the table. The separate totals the FBI did publish for 2020 showed violent crime rising 5.6% compared to 2019, but a complete rate table comparable to other years was not produced under the new system until 2023.4Federal Bureau of Investigation. FBI Releases 2020 Crime Statistics
The old Summary Reporting System counted only the most serious offense in any multi-crime incident. Its replacement, the National Incident-Based Reporting System, captures every offense within an incident across 52 categories.5Bureau of Justice Statistics. National Incident-Based Reporting System The FBI shut the old system down in January 2021. Many departments were not ready, which is why the middle-pandemic years have thinner coverage. Participation has improved since, and the 2023 and 2024 figures reflect much broader agency reporting.
The 1990s Peak and the Long Decline
The early 1990s were the most dangerous period in modern American history by this measure. The rate hovered near 758 per 100,000 from 1991 to 1992.2Federal Bureau of Investigation. Table 1 – Crime in the United States 1991-2010 Researchers have pointed to crack cocaine markets, high urban poverty, and a young population moving through its highest-risk years as contributing factors.
Crime then fell at a pace that surprised criminologists. By 2000, the rate had dropped to 506.5, a decline of about a third in under a decade.3Federal Bureau of Investigation. Table 1 – Crime in the United States 2000-2019 The drop continued through the 2000s, reaching 404.5 by 2010. No single explanation accounts for it. Researchers point to better policing technology, economic growth, an aging population, declining lead exposure, and higher incarceration rates, with ongoing debate about which factors mattered most.
The rate bottomed out at 361.6 in 2014, the lowest point in the modern data.6Federal Bureau of Investigation. Table 1 – Crime in the United States 2014-2015 It ticked upward slightly in 2015 and 2016 before settling back near that floor through 2019. That long plateau made the 2020 disruption all the more jarring.
The 2020 Spike and the Recovery
The pandemic year broke the pattern. The FBI reported a 5.6% increase in violent crime for 2020 compared to 2019, the first rise in four years.4Federal Bureau of Investigation. FBI Releases 2020 Crime Statistics But that headline number masked wildly different movement across offense types. Robbery fell 9.3% and rape dropped 12.0% as lockdowns reduced the public interactions where those crimes occur.7Federal Bureau of Investigation. FBI Releases 2020 Crime Statistics Homicide, meanwhile, surged by roughly 30%, the largest single-year jump in modern American history. Aggravated assaults also rose substantially.
The recovery has been faster than many predicted. By 2023 the violent crime rate reported to police was 393.9 per 100,000, and by 2024 it had dropped further to 370.8, a 5.8% year-over-year decline that brought the rate back near pre-pandemic levels.1Bureau of Justice Statistics. Crime Known to Law Enforcement, 2024 Preliminary data for 2025 suggests the trend continued, with one analysis finding homicides declined 21% compared to 2024. If that pace holds, the national rate may soon match or beat the 2014 low.
What Counts in These Numbers
The FBI tracks four offenses as violent crimes, all involving force or the threat of force against a person.8Federal Bureau of Investigation. Violent Crime Murder and non-negligent manslaughter covers the intentional killing of one person by another, excluding accidental deaths, suicides, and killings ruled justified. Rape covers any non-consensual sexual penetration; the FBI expanded this definition in 2013 to cover all victims regardless of gender and to include situations where the victim could not consent due to intoxication or other incapacity.9Federal Bureau of Investigation. Uniform Crime Reporting Program – Rape Addendum Robbery covers taking property from a person through force or intimidation. Aggravated assault covers an attack intended to cause serious injury, usually involving a weapon or conduct likely to result in severe harm.
Property crimes like burglary and car theft are tracked separately and are not included in the yearly rates above. Firearms play an outsized role in the most serious of the offenses that are counted: around 80% of homicides from 2018 to 2022 involved a firearm.10Bureau of Justice Statistics. Trends and Patterns in Firearm Violence, 1993-2023
One final caveat on what the year-by-year numbers measure. These are crimes reported to police, so they miss incidents victims never brought to law enforcement. The Bureau of Justice Statistics runs a separate National Crime Victimization Survey that interviews roughly 240,000 people in 150,000 households each year and consistently finds higher totals than police reports do.11Bureau of Justice Statistics. National Crime Victimization Survey The trend lines in both sources move together over time, but the levels differ, and that gap is worth keeping in mind when comparing any single year’s figure against what people are actually experiencing.