‘If it bleeds, it leads,’ Skim through the headlines of today’s American papers and you’ll struggle to find much that’s positive. Coverage of the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis on Saturday might make you think the United States is on the brink of widespread civil disorder, but the truth is that the country is set to have its safest year since 1900. Last week, a report by the Council on Criminal Justice (CCJ) examining 40 cities across the US found that homicides in the fell by an astounding 21 per cent in 2025.
The Trump government, of course, was quick to take credit. ‘Deporting criminal illegal alien murderers reduces murders,’ tweeted US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), next to a chart from the study. But not everyone’s convinced Trump’s mass deportations are behind the period of relative peace. ‘What I want to stress is that we don’t know exactly why crime has gone down: any definitive answer will require serious study and time,’ said the study’s co-author Robert Boxerman.
While Boxerman acknowledged that while some of those deported during Trump may have harboured homicidal tendencies, there’s no way to tell how much crime has been prevented. Many of those caught in the roundup had only minor arrest records – for traffic violations or marijuana – and some had no record at all.
So what else can be behind the turnaround? ‘Gun violence dropped really dramatically,’ said Peter Cunningham, senior advisor at Chicago Cred, an organisation that hires ex-cons as mediators to de-escalate conflicts.
‘We just had the best year in 60 years – since 1965, in terms of the number of homicides. Shootings are way down as well, fatal and non-fatal. It’s hard to prove that a shooting that doesn’t happen is because of something you did, but I can tell you that arrests are also way down. And so that really suggests to us strongly that we’re not arresting our way out of the problem. We’re not just incarcerating people left and right. We’re actually helping people change their behaviour.’
Inner-city killing ain’t what it used to be. The popularity of crack cocaine in the 1980s and early 1990s turned neighbourhood street gangs into criminal empires not unlike the mob. Prosecutors aggressively pursued the kingpins of these mega-gangs, and while this kind of organised crime still exists, they’ve fractured into smaller, less-disciplined cliques. Nowadays, shootings between young men are more likely stem from personal quarrels or disrespect than the mafia (although that element, of course, persists).
This makes the gang environment more chaotic, but also leaves room for violence interrupters like Chicago Cred. ‘Chicago has built just an absolutely amazing collection of community violence intervention organizations,’ said Cunningham. ‘We have about 24 of them there. We’re employing a couple of thousand guys who were all involved in the justice system, so to speak, lives of crime, and now we hire them explicitly because they have relationships with the community to help stop shootings.’ Chicago was once nicknamed ‘Chiraq’ – from 2003-2012, as many citizens were killed there as US soldiers lost their lives in Iraq. In 2024, there were 587 murders, but in 2025, there were 416.
Among the most inspiring success stories is Baltimore, Maryland – once ‘Bodymore, Murderland’, popularised by the sprawling saga of The Wire. In 2020, Mayor Brandon Scott inherited a city plagued by gunplay between warring drug crews and a strong suspicion of the police, exemplified by the riots after Freddie Gray’s death in custody, and the revelation that Baltimore PD’s elite Gun Trace Task Force itself was acting like a gang, robbing drug dealers and planting evidence.
The city’s most prolific offenders have received a letter from Mayor Scott
In 2022, there were 334 homicides in the city, and last year there were only 133. This plunge can be partly attributed to Safe Streets, the violence intervention workers patrolling Baltimore’s roughest neighbourhoods in bright orange jackets, and the carrot-and-stick approach of Mayor Scott. The city’s most prolific offenders have received a letter from Scott, telling them to get help putting their life back on-track, or else they’ll feel the full weight of the law.
Crimefighting technology has become more widely-adopted and sophisticated: in Philadelphia, the number of high-definition surveillance cameras able to read the fine print on a tattoo across the street more than doubled between 2023-2024. Patrol cars are now equipped with automatic licence plate readers, allowing police to quickly track getaway vehicles, while forensic labs have invested in more cellphone data extractors. The knowledge they’re likely to be busted is a strong deterrent when crooks contemplate their next drive-by.
Society itself growing more digitised is also leading to less real-world crime. For example, all that time youngsters spend gaming or watching TikTok brain rot is time they’re not spending up to no good. For all the controversy around the Grand Theft Auto games – a gangster franchise in which the player plans heists and guns down cops – one Dutch study found delinquency dropped among 12 to 25-year-olds after the release of GTA V.
Meanwhile, if you’re a drug dealer in the 21st century, you probably own a mobile phone, so there’s no reason to wait precariously on a street corner with a Glock tucked down your jeans when anyone who wants to get high can simply call you. It renders turf wars pointless. Our increasing reliance on cards or apps for payment also means less opportunity for street robberies. All the while, Americans are steadily drinking less alcohol. A record low 54 per cent drank last year. This, of course, means less drunken foolishness.
Whatever the reason, America is becoming safer. More people should talk about this.
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