Americans were victims of violent crime far less often in 2025 than a year earlier, according to preliminary figures from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. The rate of violent victimization, not counting simple assault, dropped 25%, while property crime victimization fell 19%.
The numbers come from the National Crime Victimization Survey, which the bureau released the week before Tuesday's midterm elections. Because it asks people directly what happened to them, it counts incidents that never reached police, something tallies built from police records cannot do.
The survey questions a nationally representative sample of people 12 and older about violent crime and household property crime. It does not measure homicide.
Aggravated assault showed the sharpest violent drop, falling 31%, from 4.5 victimizations per 1,000 people in 2024 to 3.1 in 2025. Robbery declined 27% and rape and sexual assault 11%, while simple assault barely moved, slipping from 18.8 to 18.3 per 1,000.
In all, the bureau estimates people 12 and older endured 7.5 million violent victimizations last year, a rate of 25.7 per 1,000. Leaving out simple assault, the rate fell from 9.9 to 7.4 per 1,000.
Households reported an estimated 14.9 million property victimizations, with the rate falling from 138.0 to 111.2 per 1,000 households. Motor vehicle theft dropped 30%, burglary or trespassing 25%, other household theft 19% and vandalism nearly 11%.
The survey lines up with the FBI's own figures, drawn from offenses logged by police, which have shown crime falling nationwide for several years; early FBI data points to further declines in 2026. The nonpartisan Council on Criminal Justice has found drops in several of the country's biggest cities, though local trends vary.
How the survey changed
Thaddeus Johnson, a senior fellow at the council and an associate professor of criminology and criminal justice at Georgia State University, said the agreement among data sources strengthened his confidence that crimes other than homicide are genuinely declining.
To see that those things really align, it gives me much more confidence that I’ve had over these past several years that what we’re seeing is a real decline in crimes beyond homicides
Thaddeus Johnson, senior fellow, Council on Criminal Justice
The bureau finished moving to a redesigned version of the survey in January 2025. The new questionnaire relies on shorter, more targeted questions meant to jog respondents' memories, including of unreported crimes, and asks more about sexual assault, encounters with police and the aftermath for victims.
Bureau officials warned that results from the new version cannot be directly matched against estimates from the old one. The 2025 figures could also shift in the final report, expected next year.
