A new report from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has found that crime in the United States decreased in 2024, continuing a trend of improved public safety after a spike in murders during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The report, released on Tuesday, estimates that 1,221,345 incidents of violent crime – including murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault offences – took place in the US last year, down by 4.5 percent from 2023.

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Intentional homicides decreased by 14.9 percent. But at a rate of 5 for every 100,000 people, the murder rate in the US remains significantly higher than throughout most of the world.

For example, according to United Nations data, the murder rate in Japan in 2023 was 0.23 per 100,000 people. In Oman, the rate was 0.14. In Norway, it was 0.72. And in the US’s northern neighbour, Canada, the rate was 1.98.

Nonetheless, the 2024 murder rate in the US represents a nine-year low and a major decline from a recent peak of 6.7 per 100,000 in 2020, the first year of the pandemic.

Rape offences also went down by 5.2 percent in 2024, the report said, while reports of hate crimes decreased by 1.5 percent.

Overall, a violent crime occurred in the US every 26 seconds, a murder every 31 minutes and a rape offence every four minutes.

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Property crime also decreased in 2024, according to the FBI report. The bureau recorded 5,986,400 such offences, an 8.1 percent decrease from 2023.

The data is based on the reporting of thousands of law enforcement agencies that cover 95.6 percent of US residents, the FBI said.

According to the report, 64 police officers were criminally killed last year, and 43 others died in accidents. More than 85,700 officers were assaulted, a slight uptick from 2023 and a 10-year high.

Gun violence has been a leading driver of crime in the US. According to the database Gun Violence Archives, there have been 8,878 gun-related deaths and 261 mass shootings so far in 2025.

Last week, an attacker armed with a rifle killed four people, including a police officer, near the headquarters of the National Football League (NFL) in New York City.

Last year, US President Donald Trump made public safety a major theme in his election campaign, portraying his Democratic rivals as weak on crime and anti-police.

Although the initial uptick in crime rates happened during the last year of Trump’s first term, the Republican leader repeatedly promised to restore “law and order”. It is largely the states and local authorities that oversee policing.

On Tuesday, Trump renewed his criticism of local policing and prosecution in Washington, DC, threatening to have federal authorities take over the US capital city.

He claimed that teenage “thugs” are randomly attacking people in the capital city and called for any youth suspects to be prosecuted and tried as adults.

“Washington, DC, must be safe, clean, and beautiful for all Americans and, importantly, for the World to see,” Trump wrote in a social media post.

“If DC doesn’t get its act together, and quickly, we will have no choice but to take Federal control of the City, and run this City how it should be run, and put criminals on notice that they’re not going to get away with it anymore.”

However, official data shows that crime has been on a downward trend in Washington, DC, contradicting Trump’s claim that the capital “is totally out of control”.

For example, violent crime went down by 35 percent in 2024 compared with the previous year, and homicide dropped by 32 percent.

Tuesday’s data does not reflect the state of public safety under Trump, who returned to the White House in January this year.