Texas Joins a Historic National Crime Decline With Numbers Not Seen in Decades

A Nation Safer Than It Has Been in Over a Century

Something remarkable is happening across America — and the numbers are hard to argue with. Crime rates have continued falling across a sample of large U.S. cities in the first half of 2026, with homicide rates dropping enough to put the nation on track for another historic low in killings. This isn't a blip or a statistical quirk. A new analysis from the nonpartisan think tank Council on Criminal Justice found that nine of 13 crime categories tracked in 36 cities declined compared with the first six months of 2025.

The headline figure is staggering. The average homicide rate in the first half of 2026 was 51% lower than its peak in 2022 and 31% lower than the first half of 2019, before the pandemic-era increase in violence. To put that in perspective, the Council's previous analysis estimated that the national homicide rate in 2025 was likely the lowest in more than a century — since at least 1900 — based on preliminary data. The U.S. hasn't been this safe in living memory, or anyone's living memory, for that matter.

Texas Leads the Way — Especially in the Rio Grande Valley

Texas is very much part of this story. Crime in Texas has been decreasing since 2023, according to Uniform Crime Reporting Data released by the Texas Department of Public Safety. In the last five years, crime in Texas peaked in 2022 — with a rate of 2,830.14 per 100,000 people — before trending downward. The pace of that decline has been accelerating. Between 2022 and 2023, the state's crime rate decreased by 3.3%, and between 2023 and 2024, the crime rate dropped another 8.2%. Then, between 2024 and 2025, Texas' crime rate decreased by 13%.

Perhaps the most striking example within the state is McAllen, a city of 151,000 in the Rio Grande Valley. McAllen is celebrating its lowest crime levels in 40 years. McAllen reported a 21% drop in crime in 2025, and Brownsville, the Valley's largest city with 193,000 people, also had a 21% drop in crime in 2025. The trend extends well beyond South Texas. Homicides fell in 21 of the 30 cities with available data, including declines of more than 50% in Arlington, Texas, along with Rochester, New York; Little Rock, Arkansas; and Colorado Springs, Colorado.

What's Actually Driving the Drop?

The drop is broad enough that no single explanation covers it. In Texas specifically, about 70% of statewide violent crime volume is concentrated in the most populated 25 jurisdictions. So when cities like Houston, San Antonio, and Dallas invest in hot-spot policing and violent crime reduction plans, the statewide numbers move. But experts caution against crediting any one policy or administration. "The honest answer is that no single actor gets to claim credit," said criminologist Alex del Carmen. "Declines this broad, occurring simultaneously in cities with very different policies, tell us structural and post-pandemic forces are doing much of the work."

Beyond homicides, the broader crime picture improved significantly as well. Reported robberies dropped 17% compared with the first half of 2025, gun assaults fell 6%, and carjackings declined 47%. Researchers found that 11 of 13 offenses were lower in 2025 than in 2024, with nine dropping by 10% or more. The results weren't uniform everywhere — cities like Austin, Texas; Minneapolis; Norfolk, Virginia; and Pittsburgh had homicide rates above their 2019 levels — but the overall trajectory is unmistakable.

A Hopeful Trend With a Cautionary Note

Not everyone is ready to declare a permanent turning point. Some pandemic-era funding that helped cities address the root causes of crime is set to lapse at the end of 2026, and University of Chicago criminologist John Roman suspects the multi-year crime drop might soon end. "The numbers are going to stabilize over the next 12 months," Roman said. "The decline is over." Whether that prediction proves correct remains to be seen, but it's a reminder that these gains require sustained investment and attention to hold.

For now, though, the data tells a genuinely encouraging story — for Texas and for the country. Communities that spent years grappling with surging pandemic-era violence are breathing easier, and cities once defined by danger are posting their safest numbers in generations. Final national figures from the FBI are expected later this fall , which will offer an even clearer picture of just how historic this moment truly is.