Each violent and property crime are far beneath their Nineteen Nineties peak, however some crimes see periodic rises.
All of us need to stay someplace we really feel secure.
Crime is clearly a priority for many individuals. Almost 60% of Individuals say that decreasing crime needs to be a high precedence for the US president and Congress.1 An identical share says that violent crime is essential when making choices about which political candidates to vote for.
Monitoring crime charges is essential to understanding whether or not methods to cut back offenses are efficient and for figuring out areas of concern.
Sadly, the standard of crime information is commonly too poor to get a transparent perspective of modifications over the long run and to check charges between international locations.
That is true even for the crime with probably the most full protection, murder.2 Comparisons are much more difficult for much less extreme crimes.
Nevertheless, just a few international locations have higher-quality and longer-term estimates.
On this article, we’ll give attention to the US. The dataset revealed by the FBI goes again to 1979, giving us an nearly 50-year perspective on how crime has modified.3 Since not all crimes are recorded, and reporting methodologies can change over time, the FBI produces a dataset that makes an attempt to regulate for this. Meaning this information is perhaps barely completely different from the uncooked reported crime figures that you simply see elsewhere.
A number of crimes fall throughout the class of violent crimes. In US statistics, this contains murder (homicide and non-negligent manslaughter), rape, theft, and aggravated assault.4
Within the chart beneath, you may see nationwide charges of violent crime since 1979. That is measured because the variety of offenses per 100,000 folks.5
Violent crime charges elevated in the course of the Eighties, reaching a peak within the early Nineteen Nineties at round 750 offenses per 100,000. Since then, charges have greater than halved. Over the previous three many years, charges have fluctuated barely from yr to yr, however the general development has been downward.
Has this decline been the results of a drop in a particular sort of violent crime, or have charges fallen throughout all classes?
On this second chart, you may once more see the combination measure of violent crime charges, alongside the precise charges for murder, aggravated assault, and violent theft.
The very first thing to note is the variations in scale on the y-axis. Homicides are far much less widespread than assaults or robberies.
However general, there’s a pretty constant sample throughout these crimes over these 50 years. Charges peaked within the early Nineteen Nineties (though murder and theft charges have been already excessive by the Eighties) and have seen a considerable decline since then. Murder charges have roughly halved; aggravated assaults have dropped by 40%; and robberies by nearly 80%.
Once more, there may be some variability over this era. Murder and assault charges elevated in 2020 and 2021, however have since fallen once more.
Knowledge on rape and sexual assault
In 2013, the FBI modified its definition of rape in its Uniform Crime Reporting Program. This was the primary time it had completed so in its 80-year historical past for a Half 1 offense. Meaning the information will not be comparable over your complete 50-year interval.
The legacy definition of rape was narrower in scope. It was outlined because the “carnal information of a feminine forcibly and towards her will”. In different phrases, the forceful penetration of a lady towards her consent. It didn’t embrace male victims, nor did it embrace different sexual assault offenses.
The revised definition is broader in two methods. First, it contains male and non-binary victims. Second, it contains different sexual assault crimes, together with oral and anal intercourse towards somebody’s consent, and sexual assault with an object.
We now have plotted each sequence — utilizing the older, legacy definition, and the revised definition — within the chart beneath.
You may see that there’s information out there for each the legacy and revised definitions for a number of years. Throughout these years, rape charges are, as we’d count on, greater within the revised definition, because it features a broader set of victims and crimes.
The FBI revealed a breakdown of how the variety of these crimes diverse in 2013, utilizing each the legacy and revised definitions. The variety of rapes — outlined as forcible penetration — with feminine victims was the identical: 26,994 in every. However the depend below the revised definition moreover included 611 instances of rape of male victims, 7,602 instances categorised as “sodomy” (oral or anal sexual activity with out consent), and three,043 counts of “sexual assault with an object”.
This modification in definition means we can’t get an entire understanding of how rape charges have modified since 1979. However the information does present that rape of girls (utilizing the narrower definition) grew to become much less widespread from a peak within the early Nineteen Nineties, by to the early 2010s. After that time, charges begin to climb barely. The revised definition reveals a rise to 2020, earlier than falling again to charges equal to the mid-2010s.
What about non-violent crimes? These are likely to fall below the banner of property crimes. Property crimes contain the stealing, harm, or destruction of somebody’s property. This contains offenses reminiscent of housebreaking, larceny (which is extra like pickpocketing, and with out breaking and coming into), theft, and arson.
Within the chart beneath, you may see how property crime charges have modified over the previous half-century.
The development is just like what we noticed for violent crime. Charges have been excessive all through the Eighties and into the early Nineteen Nineties, however have fallen by 60% within the final 30 years. In contrast to violent crime charges, there was much less variability from yr to yr, leading to a reasonably constant downward development.
On the peak, there have been round 5,000 offenses per 100,000 folks. That’s one for each twentieth individual within the inhabitants, annually. Since then, it has fallen to fewer than 1 per 50 folks.
Once more, the chart beneath appears to be like at developments for several types of property crime.6 Larceny and housebreaking have mirrored the regular decline because the Nineteen Nineties.
Motorcar theft has been on a bumpier street, with a extra distinct peak across the Nineteen Nineties, a rebound within the early 2000s, and a smaller uptick in charges during the last 5 years. To place these numbers in absolute phrases: in 1991, round 1.7 million automobiles have been stolen in the US. Lately, that quantity has fluctuated between 700,000 and 1 million.
The general development in each violent and property crimes has been downward during the last 30 years. Individuals within the Nineteen Nineties have been at the very least twice as prone to be victims of crime as they’re as we speak. That is additionally true at a world degree. Whereas we don’t have constant information on theft and assaults, we see that international murder charges have gone down in latest many years.
This isn’t essentially how the general public perceives it.
The polling company Gallup has performed quite a few surveys asking Individuals how they understand modifications in crime charges since 1993. In 23 out of the 27 annual surveys, the bulk mentioned that they believed crime charges had elevated from the earlier yr.
Individuals within the Nineteen Nineties have been at the very least twice as prone to be victims of crime as they’re as we speak.
It isn’t true that crime has fallen each yr; there have been durations of elevated charges alongside the best way. The beginning of the 2020s is a transparent instance. However charges in most years have certainly been decrease than within the earlier yr. More often than not, the favored notion was due to this fact at odds with the information.
One purpose why folks typically assume that crime is rising is that they always see particular person occasions on the information.7 As we confirmed in a latest article, homicides dominate protection associated to causes of loss of life in main information retailers throughout the political spectrum. Homicides obtained 40% to 50% of “causes of loss of life” protection, regardless of making up lower than 1% of deaths.
This disconnect between perceptions and the fact of crime charges is comprehensible. It’s unattainable to get a way of the broader modifications in crime from particular person tales alone. To get a way of perspective, we have to step again and take a look at constant information over time.
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Hannah Ritchie and Fiona Spooner (2026) - “How have crime charges in the US modified during the last 50 years?” Printed on-line at OurWorldinData.org. Retrieved from: 'https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260119-000134/us-crime-rates.html' [Online Resource] (archived on January 19, 2026).BibTeX quotation
@article{owid-us-crime-rates,
creator = {Hannah Ritchie and Fiona Spooner},
title = {How have crime charges in the US modified during the last 50 years?},
journal = {Our World in Knowledge},
yr = {2026},
be aware = {https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260119-000134/us-crime-rates.html}
}
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