Why you might not know that 2024 was America's safest year since the 1960s

An overwhelming majority of Americans, 64 percent, believe that crime increased across the country in 2024, according to a Gallup survey conducted late last year. An overwhelming majority of Americans are wrong.

On Tuesday, August 5, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released its comprehensive report on crime in the United States for 2024. As crime data expert Jeff Asher noted, not only did the report reveal that overall crime was down substantially in 2024, but crime "fell in 2024 across every category and population group." Specifically, it "was down in all seven categories of crime across all 10 population groups that the FBI measures."

Moreover, the new FBI data shows that both violent crime and property crime are at their lowest level since the 1960s. In 2024, there were about 349 reported violent crimes in the United States for every 100,000 Americans. That is the lowest rate of violent crime since 1969.

In the early 1990s, there were over 750 reported violent crimes for every 100,000 Americans. As the population has increased in the last 30 years, the raw number of violent crimes has decreased. In 1992, for example, there were 747,000 more reported violent crimes in America than there were in 2024 — even though America had 84 million fewer people in 1992.

Similarly, in 2024, there were 1,760 reported property crimes for every 100,000 Americans. That is the lowest rate of property crimes since 1961.

The murder rate also plummeted 14.9 percent in 2024, which is "the fastest drop in murder ever recorded." After spiking during the pandemic, the murder rate in the United States is now below pre-pandemic levels. The current murder rate of five per 100,000 Americans was last achieved in 2015. It is about 50 percent lower than the peak in the early 1980s.

The FBI report is major news about the historic decline of crime in America. But, for some media outlets, it was barely worth mentioning.

How crime is covered in America

In 2020, with the onset of the pandemic, murders spiked in the United States. When the FBI released its 2020 crime report on September 27, 2021, it was front-page news in the New York Times the next day. The story highlighted that it was the "biggest one-year increase in homicides… since national records started in 1960."

So, in 2025, how did the New York Times cover the FBI report documenting the largest annual decrease in homicides ever recorded? The report did not make the front page on August 6, and, as of Wednesday afternoon, the New York Times had not covered the story at all.

In 2023, the second-fastest homicide rate decline on record, the New York Times published a story and placed it on page A19.

Similarly, on September 28, 2021, the Washington Post made the historic increase in murders front-page news.

But in 2025, the Washington Post republished a 230-word article by the Associated Press and did not include it in the physical paper on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump's August 5 threat to federalize Washington, D.C., because of an alleged assault of a former member of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), did make the front page of the Post. The piece quotes Trump claiming federalization is the only option so that other people will "not have had to go through the horrors of Violent Crime." It describes the assault as "the latest seemingly random assault on a federal staffer." (A Congressional intern was killed in crossfire in June.)

The article briefly notes, in the eighth paragraph, that violent crime is down 26 percent in D.C. year-to-date in 2025. The article does not note that violent crime in D.C. declined 35 percent in 2024 and "is the lowest it has been in over 30 years." In 2024, D.C. also recorded "the fewest assaults with dangerous weapons and burglaries in over 30 years."

How misperception of crime warps policy

The lack of media coverage about the recent crime data is not an anomaly. Media coverage often sensationalizes violent crime. This can warp public perception about crime rates, leading people to believe that crime is rampant even when it is on the decline.

Media coverage of crime is not proportionate to actual crime trends. Local news is predominantly filled with crime coverage, and “local stations manipulate crime and violence as a marketing strategy,” according to a report by the Sentencing Project. Studies have estimated that local news coverage “devote[s] one-third to one-fourth of their airtime to crime stories.” Local news also “concentrate[s] on uncommon but sensational incidents of violence.”

Politicians often utilize crime as a talking point, leading the media to cover crime more frequently. A 2022 analysis by Bloomberg found that, after New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who made crime a major point of his campaign, was elected, coverage of crime in New York City increased dramatically. After Adams’ inauguration, “[t]here were nearly 800 stories per month across all digital and print media about crime in New York City,” compared to “an average 132 stories per month during the eight-year tenure of the previous mayor.”

Media coverage can also “warp public opinion in ways that set back policy changes shown to improve public safety.” A 2024 Sentencing Project report found that in Baltimore, media outlets “highlighted crimes by young people far out of proportion with their arrest rates.” The report notes that the media coverage “likely contributed to a bipartisan rush to toughen juvenile justice policies that is unsupported by the evidence of what actually works to reduce youth offending.”

In 2019, a bail reform policy was passed in New York that was supported by the majority of voters. But in the months that followed, voters’ support plummeted. According to FWD.us, negative media coverage that contained “inaccurate, dehumanizing, and biased” information “ultimately set the table for rapid rollbacks of the reforms.”