New York City is on track to record one of its lowest-ever yearly homicide totals in 2025.
The NYPD reported there have been 297 homicides in the city through Dec. 21. That number puts 2025 in the same ballpark as other historically low years, including 2018 and 2017, when the number of homicides fell below 300 during Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration.
It also marks a sharp decline in killings from 2020, when the number of homicides in the city ticked up to 462 during the COVID-19 pandemic.
While similar trends have played out in other large cities across the country, the NYPD and a policing expert credit the city's law enforcement with helping to drive the rate so low this year. Peter Moskos, a former police officer and current professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, pointed to collaboration between law enforcement agencies and a focus on violent crime and repeat offenders.
The numbers
From the beginning of 2025 up until the last days of December, the NYPD reported slightly under 300 homicides. That represents about a 20% decrease from the number of killings in 2024, when the police department reported 377 people were killed in the city.
The homicide totals in recent years are drastically lower than those going back to the 1990s, when the city once recorded more than 2,200 people killed in a single year, the highest-ever total.
The city recorded 652 shooting incidents and a total of 812 shooting victims in the first 11 months of 2025, according to data provided by the NYPD, which said the number of shooting incidents is the lowest ever recorded in that time frame.
At a recent swearing-in ceremony for NYPD recruits, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch mentioned another statistic to demonstrate the relative rarity of homicides in the city.
“Recently, New York City went 12 consecutive days without a homicide, the longest stretch ever recorded,” she said.
What’s driving the drop
Homicides and other major crimes have been declining nationally following pandemic spikes, according the the FBI.
An NYPD spokesperson also credited a number of policing priorities enacted by the department to account for the decline in killings.
The NYPD deployed thousands of additional officers to nightly foot posts in areas near public housing, on the subway and other spots in precincts across the city, the spokesperson said.
The department also made a point of targeting gangs in the city, executing 61 gang-related takedowns this year, the spokesperson said.
Moskos credited the NYPD with focusing on people who commit violent crime or carry illegal guns.
“How many murderers are there? Or even potential murderers, people who might murder tomorrow?” Moskos said.
“It’s probably less than 500 — it might be a lot less, even. If you do actually lock up a few of those people, you can have a pretty big impact on the murder rate,” he added.
