Preliminary Justice Department data show serious violent crime dropped 25 percent in 2025 while property crime fell 19 percent, according to findings from the National Crime Victimization Survey obtained by Breitbart News.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics survey, which interviews victims directly rather than relying solely on police reports, found about 669,000 fewer violent victimizations involving rape or sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated assault compared to 2024. American households also experienced roughly 3.5 million fewer property crimes over the same period.
The rate of violent victimization excluding simple assault fell from 9.9 to 7.4 per 1,000 residents age 12 and older. 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 dropped from 2.2 to 1.6 per 1,000 residents.
Including simple assault, 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, though BJS flagged that change as not statistically significant. Simple assaults made up most of the violent crime total, at 5.33 million cases.
Property Crime Down Across the Board
Households reported 14.89 million property victimizations in 2025, down from 18.37 million in 2024. The rate fell from 138 to 111.2 per 1,000 households.
Burglary and trespassing dropped by about 460,000 cases 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 — 349,000 fewer stolen cars, a roughly 30 percent drop in the rate. General household theft fell 19 percent, from 13.93 million to 11.41 million cases.
The Census Bureau conducts the survey each year for BJS, capturing crimes that never show up in police records because victims didn’t report them. The survey excludes homicide but covers attempted, threatened, and completed offenses.
Survey Numbers Outpace FBI Data
The victimization survey tracks the same direction as separate FBI data showing drops in crimes recorded by law enforcement, but the survey shows far steeper declines. Police-reported aggravated assaults fell 7.2 percent in FBI figures, versus a 31 percent drop recorded by the victim survey.
Sources cited in the original reporting pointed to that gap as evidence the real crime rate is falling faster than police statistics capture, attributing it to higher police solve rates encouraging more victims to report crimes. BJS itself cautioned that because the two systems measure crime differently, the gap alone doesn’t prove a shift in reporting behavior.
Enforcement Surge Under Trump
The declines came during President Donald Trump’s first year back in office, as federal authorities expanded border enforcement and targeted violent offenders, drug trafficking rings, and illegal firearms.
The White House reported in January 2026 that more than 400,000 illegal immigrants charged with or convicted of crimes were deported during Trump’s first year in office. Administration officials credited the enforcement push and a steep drop in illegal border crossings with improving national public safety, saying increased enforcement also deterred crime among undocumented immigrants who remained in the country.
Federal agencies logged sharp increases in enforcement activity. Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee in September 2025, FBI Director Kash Patel said agents seized over 1,600 kilograms of fentanyl — a 25 percent jump over 2024 — while disrupting approximately 1,800 gangs and criminal enterprises.
Patel tied the falling crime numbers to pulling agents out of headquarters and flooding high-crime areas with personnel.
The ATF reported a 57 percent surge in federal criminal charges under six firearms-trafficking statutes in 2025, attributing the jump to focused enforcement on repeat violent offenders, criminal organizations, and illegal gun networks.
The findings are preliminary; final 2025 estimates are expected in 2027. BJS fully adopted a redesigned version of the survey in January 2025 and used comparable redesigned estimates for the 2024 comparison. The bureau noted the new estimates cannot be directly compared to the older survey series, which limits claims that this year’s declines are the largest since 1973.
