UNDERSTANDING HOMICIDE TRENDS

The United States has experienced a dramatic and largely unexpected shift in criminal homicide. Following a steep rise in 2020, the homicide rate fell sharply from 2022 through 2026, recording the largest single-year decline in 2025 and reaching its lowest level since at least 1900.

This rapid reversal has policymakers, the media, and the public asking a critical question: why?

To identify possible answers, the Council on Criminal Justice convened four dozen leading scholars on crime trends for a summit in September 2026. Over two days, researchers from criminology, public health, economics, and other disciplines assessed nearly 50 potential factors behind the historic decline in homicide between 2022-2026. Drawing on extensive briefing materials, existing research, and recent trends, participants rated whether in their professional judgment each factor made a major, limited, or negligible or no contribution to the decline, or if they did not have sufficient information to make a provisional judgment.

Their work produced an urgently needed assessment of what may have contributed to the historic drop in homicide—and, as importantly, what likely did not. The findings can help inform future policy by clarifying which explanations researchers consider most plausible, where uncertainty remains, and which questions warrant additional study.