Trump Claims U.S. Crime Rate Lowest in 125 Years

President Trump’s claims about U.S. crime rates reaching historic lows sparked scrutiny following a series of recent statements to national media. Between January 29 and February 8, Trump repeatedly declared, “The crime rate now is the lowest it’s been since 1900. That’s 125 years,” including during a pre-Super Bowl NBC News interview.

When pressed for evidence, the White House clarified that Trump was specifically referencing murder rates, not the broader crime rate he mentioned publicly. Officials pointed to a January 22 Axios article citing research from the Council on Criminal Justice, an independent research organization.

The Council’s 2025 Crime Trends report projects that this year’s homicide rate is on track to become “the lowest rate ever recorded in law enforcement or public health data going back to 1900,” potentially marking the “largest single-year percentage drop” on record. The FBI classifies “murder” as the willful killing of one person by another, as determined by police investigation.

Crime data experts, however, express caution about drawing such sweeping historical conclusions. Jeff Asher, a crime data researcher, explained that methodological inconsistencies in data collection before 1960 make direct comparisons problematic. “We just can’t say for sure” whether current rates represent an all-time low across 125 years, Asher noted.

What is more certain is that murder rates have declined significantly in 2025. The Council on Criminal Justice projects approximately 4 murders per 100,000 residents, while Asher estimates about 4.2 per 100,000. Both figures fall below the previous record low of 4.4 per 100,000 people recorded in 2014, based on consistent FBI methodology dating back to 1960.

The approximately 20% decline in murder rates during 2025 is expected to be the largest single-year drop ever documented, according to both sources. However, declaring this the lowest rate in 125 years involves comparing dissimilar datasets.

Prior to 1960, FBI data used different definitions and represented a smaller portion of the U.S. population. Data from 1900 to 1929 came from public health sources and counted all homicides, including justifiable killings, which creates a broader category than the FBI’s current murder classification.

Despite these methodological challenges, Ernesto Lopez, senior research specialist with the Council on Criminal Justice, expressed “high confidence” that once final 2025 numbers are released by the FBI later this year, the homicide level could indeed be “the lowest ever recorded in the United States since 1900.”

Beyond homicides, broader crime statistics also show positive trends. Overall violent crime and property crime rates have declined steadily since the early 1990s and currently stand at their lowest levels since at least the mid-1970s. However, Lopez clarified that his organization did not examine whether these broader crime categories have reached 125-year lows.

The distinction between overall crime rates and specific crime categories is crucial when evaluating Trump’s claim. While murder rates appear headed for historic lows, extending this conclusion to the entirety of America’s crime picture—as Trump did in his public statements—represents an overreach based on the available evidence.

Crime experts emphasize that final 2025 figures, expected later this year, will provide a clearer picture of where current murder rates stand in historical context, though methodological differences in older data will continue to complicate precise 125-year comparisons.