WASHINGTON — Fewer Americans were victims of serious violent crime last year, a national household survey suggests, though the agency behind the numbers calls them preliminary and subject to change.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics put the 2025 rate of serious violent victimization at 7.4 per 1,000 people age 12 or older. That is down 25% from 9.9 per 1,000 a year earlier. Serious violent crime here means rape or sexual assault, robbery and aggravated assault; simple assault is not counted.
Counting all violent offenses in the survey, the bureau estimated 7.5 million victimizations of people 12 or older in 2025 — 25.7 for every 1,000 residents.
Property crime fell too. Households reported an estimated 14.9 million property victimizations. The rate dropped 19%, from 138.0 per 1,000 households in 2024 to 111.2 in 2025.
Two cautions come with the figures. They are preliminary, and the Bureau of Justice Statistics does not expect to publish final 2025 estimates until 2027. And the bureau switched to a redesigned questionnaire for all interviews in January 2025, so it says the new estimates should not be compared with results from the old questionnaire.
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