The Justice Department said on Oct. 26 that serious violent victimization fell 25% from 2024 to 2025, citing preliminary estimates from the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Crime Victimization Survey, a violent crime survey of about 150,000 households. The same bureau page that carries the number also says the redesigned survey’s estimates “are not comparable to legacy NCVS estimates,” according to the bureau’s report. A department release that credits a policy agenda with the decline sits beside a statistical agency warning about the comparison.
What the Survey Found
Serious violent victimization, which covers rape and sexual assault, robbery and aggravated assault but not simple assault, fell from 9.9 to 7.4 per 1,000 people age 12 or older, the Justice Department said. Aggravated assault fell 31%, from 4.5 to 3.1 per 1,000. Property victimization fell 19%, from 138.0 to 111.2 per 1,000 households, a drop of 26.8 per 1,000. Burglary and trespassing dropped 25%, motor vehicle theft 30% and other household theft 19%.
Including simple assault, the bureau counted about 7.5 million violent victimizations in 2025, a rate of 25.7 per 1,000 people, and about 14.9 million property victimizations. A drop of 2.5 victimizations per 1,000, applied to the roughly 292 million people age 12 or older implied by the bureau’s count and rate, works out to about 730,000 fewer serious violent victimizations. That is a calculation from the two figures, not a number either agency published. The same method on aggravated assault, a drop of 1.4 per 1,000, gives about 410,000 fewer victimizations.
How the Survey is Built
The survey interviews about 240,000 people age 12 or older in about 150,000 households each year, and it counts crimes whether or not they were reported to police. The bureau moved fully to a redesigned questionnaire, called the NCVS-R, in January 2025. The estimates are preliminary and may change in the final “Criminal Victimization, 2025” report, which the bureau lists as forthcoming in 2027. The department separately pointed to a bureau homicide report released the week before. Homicide fell 17% in 2025 from 2024, the release says.
What the Department Said
Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward said in the release that the report “is proof that President Trump’s ‘Make America Safe Again’ agenda is working.” The bureau’s report, written by statisticians Jennifer L. Truman and Susannah N. Tapp, uses the 2024 figures as the comparison point for the declines and carries the comparability warning on the same page. The department’s statement says the drop proves a policy works. The bureau’s own page says the redesigned instrument and the legacy survey cannot be set side by side. The bureau’s final report is due in 2027.
