Crime rates continued falling across a sample of large U.S. cities in the first half of 2026, with homicide rates dropping enough to put the nation on track for another historic low in killings.
A new analysis from the nonpartisan think tank Council on Criminal Justice found that nine of 13 crime categories tracked in 36 cities declined compared with the first six months of 2025. Homicides fell 18% in the first half of the year, with 215 fewer killings among the 30 cities that reported data for the offense.
The decline builds on a trend that began in late 2022 after homicide rates surged during the COVID-19 pandemic. The council’s previous analysis estimated that the national homicide rate in 2025 was likely the lowest in more than a century, since at least 1900, based on preliminary data. Final national figures from the FBI are expected later this fall. The group’s latest findings suggest homicide rates could fall further in 2026.
But the researchers cautioned that the data do not reveal what’s driving the decline, nor do they support crediting any single policy or intervention.
“There is no single or easy explanation for these historic lows,” the report’s authors wrote, though they pointed to possible influences, including changes in criminal justice operations, technology, and broader social and cultural shifts.
The continued decline has occurred across cities with different political leadership, policing strategies, and economic conditions, said Adam Gelb, the council’s president and CEO, in a news release.
“Local policies and programs surely matter, but the striking consistency of the decline suggests that macro-level forces are exerting enormous influence as well,” Gelb said.
The report examined monthly crime data from 36 cities that have consistently published incident-level figures over the past nine years, including Baltimore, Chicago, New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.
The cities are not necessarily representative of all U.S. cities, and the researchers noted that the figures may change as local agencies update their data.
Homicide was among the offenses with the steepest decline. The average homicide rate in the first half of 2026 was 51% lower than its peak in 2022 and 31% lower than the first half of 2019, before the pandemic-era increase in violence.
Last year’s decline was widespread but not universal. Homicides fell in 21 of the 30 cities with available data, including declines of more than 50% in Rochester, New York; Little Rock, Arkansas; Arlington, Texas; and Colorado Springs, Colorado. Four cities — Austin, Texas; Minneapolis; Norfolk, Virginia; and Pittsburgh — had homicide rates above their 2019 levels.
Other violent crimes also generally declined. Reported robberies dropped 17% compared with the first half of 2025, gun assaults fell 6%, and carjackings declined 47%. The report found the rate of serious violent crimes ending in death, known as lethality, fell 23% compared with the same period last year.
Property crime also continued to trend downward. Motor vehicle theft declined 20% compared with the first half of 2025, while residential burglaries fell 13% and larcenies dropped 6%.
Still, not every category moved in the same direction.
Drug offenses rose 12% compared with the first half of 2025, and reported domestic violence incidents increased 8%. Shoplifting was the only offense tracked that remained higher than before the pandemic, with rates 5% above first-half 2019 levels.
Researchers said those differences highlight the difficulty of identifying a single explanation for the overall decline. Homicides, for example, have fallen much faster than aggravated assaults, which were only 3% lower than 2019 levels.
That gap suggests the forces reducing lethal violence may not be the same as those affecting other forms of crime, according to the report.
This article was written by Amanda Watford and was originally published by Stateline.
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