https://counciloncj.org/crime-trends-in ... 26-update/
Crime Trends in U.S. Cities
Mid-Year 2026 Update
July 2026
By Ernesto Lopez, Council on Criminal Justice, and Bobby Boxerman, PhD, Regional Justice Information Service
The Council on Criminal Justice (CCJ) began producing periodic crime trends reports in July 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic and nationwide protests that followed the police killing of George Floyd. Since then, the reports have documented a sharp rise, and subsequent fall, in crime across a sample of U.S. cities.
Following the historic 30% increase in homicide from 2019 to 2020, CCJ’s last report estimated that the 2025 national homicide rate will likely be at its lowest level since at least 1900. Trends through the first half of 2026 show that the decline, which began in the second half of 2022, has continued, advancing well beyond the “return to normal” phase seen after the spike in 2020. There is no single or easy explanation for these historic lows. Researchers and practitioners have pointed to a range of possible influences, including changes in criminal justice operations and strategies, technological advances, and broad shifts in society and culture.
This report updates CCJ’s previous analyses, examining yearly and monthly rates of 13 violent, property, and drug offenses reported to police from 2018 through June 2026. The analysis is based on data from a sample of 36 large American cities that have consistently published monthly crime figures over the past nine years and make those data available shortly after each month ends.
As in previous reports, special attention is given to homicide. Longer-term trends for many offenses are available here, while national historical trends in crime and victimization are collected in The Footprint: Tracking the Size of America’s Criminal Justice System. This report is not evidence of the success or failure of any policy or practice; it simply documents recent crime trends from a sample of large U.S. cities.
Key Takeaways
- Reported levels of nine of the 13 offenses were lower in the first half of 2026 than in the first half of 2025, with reported carjacking incidents seeing the largest drop (-47%) and drug offenses seeing the largest rise (+12%).
- CCJ’s last crime trends report predicted that the year-end 2025 homicide rate would likely be the lowest since 1900 (once final FBI numbers are released). The new mid-year data suggest that the 2026 homicide rate will likely dip further, again reaching a new historic low. The rate of reported homicides was 18% lower in the first half of 2026 than in the first half of 2025 in the 30 study cities providing data for that crime, representing 215 fewer homicides.
- The reported rates of four offenses have dropped by 50% or more from their peaks over the past nine years: homicide (51% lower in the first half of 2026 than the first half of 2022), carjacking (-73% vs. 2023), residential burglary (-56% vs. 2018), and motor vehicle theft (-51% vs. 2023).
- Looking at changes in violent crime in the first half of 2026 compared to the same period in 2025, there were 2% fewer reported aggravated assaults, 6% fewer gun assaults, 8% more domestic violence incidents, and 3% more sexual assaults. Robbery fell by 17%, while carjackings (a type of robbery) decreased by 47%. Lethality, the share of serious violent crime that is fatal, declined 23% in a sample of 17 cities.
- Examining changes in property crimes, there were 20% fewer motor vehicle thefts reported in the first half of 2026 than during the same period in 2025. Reports of residential burglaries (-13%), nonresidential burglaries (-10%), and larcenies (-6%) decreased during this period. Reported shoplifting was 4% higher.
- Assessing trends over a longer period, violent crime overall in the first half of 2026 was at or below levels in the first half of 2019, the year prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and social justice protests of 2020. There were 31% fewer homicides in the study cities across this period. Aggravated assault (-3%), gun assault (-17%), sexual assault (-13%), domestic violence (-7%), robbery (-41%), and carjacking (-51%) were also lower in the first half of 2026 than in the first half of 2019. Lethality fell 20%.
- Non-violent crime during the first half of this year was also generally below levels seen in the first six months of 2019. There were fewer reported residential burglaries (-50%), non-residential burglaries (-1%), larcenies (-21%), and motor vehicle thefts (-3%), but more reports of shoplifting (+5%). Drug offenses in the first half of 2026 were 15% below levels seen in the first half of 2019.