Murders Plunge

The last year was often tumultuous and chaotic, but it ended with good news: Murders and crime in general declined across the country throughout 2024.

I know some of you will be skeptical about the trend. You may have seen reports about the problems with national crime data. The F.B.I. recently had to revise its own numbers, showing that violent crime actually increased in 2022 — not decreased, as it previously reported. Can you really trust national crime statistics?

But here at The Morning, we have never relied on the F.B.I.’s data. We use figures directly from local and state police departments, independently compiled in the Real-Time Crime Index by the crime analyst Jeff Asher’s team.

In today’s newsletter, I’ll explain what the numbers show.

Continued decline

The data contains a lot of good news. First, the drop in murders that began in 2022 has accelerated. Murders fell so quickly that 2024 could have ended with fewer murders than the year before the pandemic. The nationwide murder rate was still on track to be higher than it was during its lowest point ever recorded, in 2014, but not much higher. (The 2024 data is up-to-date through October.)

If the drop in murders continued at the same rate for the rest of the year, 2024 had the largest percent decrease — nearly 16 percent — ever recorded nationwide.