Violent crime is sliding in big cities across the country, and Atlanta is very much part of that story. New year-end analyses and local police tallies show violent crime fell across many major U.S. cities last year. City officials and public safety leaders say homicides and shootings in Atlanta are down from recent highs, following three years of pandemic-era surges. The shift has city hall and neighborhood groups cautiously optimistic as they decide which crime-fighting and prevention programs to keep fully funded and which might be scaled back.
National picture: broad drops in 2025
According to a report from the Council on Criminal Justice, homicides fell roughly 21% from 2024 to 2025 in a sample of large U.S. cities, and many violent crime categories returned to or dipped below 2019 levels. The CCJ analysis notes that the decline is broad but driven by many factors, and it warns that keeping those gains will require continued investments in prevention, stronger investigations and more court capacity. Experts who contributed to the CCJ piece point to a mix of community violence interruption programs, targeted enforcement and broader social supports as likely drivers behind the trend.
Major city chiefs’ tally backs up the slide
The Major Cities Chiefs Association compiled year-end statistics from roughly 67 big-city police departments, and, as reported by KRDO, found homicides down about 19% last year, with robberies and aggravated assaults also falling. That analysis, which was picked up by national outlets, largely mirrors the CCJ findings that 2025 saw unusually large declines even though the size of the drop varied by city. Taken together, the datasets suggest the post-pandemic spike in urban violence has substantially reversed course in many places.
How Atlanta fits the trend
Local police briefings show Atlanta recorded meaningful declines last year. The Atlanta Police Department told Atlanta News First that the city logged 98 homicides in 2025 versus 171 in 2022, and the department highlighted more than 1,000 arrests of repeat offenders as part of the work behind that drop. Nearby television outlets tracked similar year-to-date reductions earlier in 2025, underscoring a multiyear downward trajectory in shootings and killings.
“Shootings continue in a three-year trajectory down in Atlanta,” APD Chief Darin Schierbaum told Atlanta News First, noting the department arrested more than 1,000 repeat offenders tied to thousands of prior offenses in 2025. Schierbaum said investigators are concentrating on a relatively small number of people and places that drive much of the city’s gun violence, an approach APD leaders say has contributed to the declines. Those comments echo weekly and quarterly updates the department has been sharing with the public and local press.
Local strategies and what officials point to
City leaders and community groups point to a mix of targeted enforcement, violence interruption programs, youth employment and diversion services as likely contributors, according to reporting by Georgia Public Broadcasting. Officials have also noted that the opening of the new Public Safety Training Center in 2025 helped stabilize recruitment and reduce attrition, giving the department more capacity to pursue investigations and community policing, per Axios. Local advocates say prevention work and youth programs deserve credit as well, but they warn that community investments will have to be maintained if the city wants to lock in the gains.
Why experts urge caution
Criminologists and analysts caution that the recent declines, while real, are not uniform across every city or neighborhood and that data collection can complicate comparisons, as noted in a review of police data by The Washington Post. The Post found some jurisdictions still show increases in specific crimes and warned that reporting changes can affect totals. Analysts also note that federal funding that supported prevention programs during the pandemic has begun to wane, which could make sustaining reductions more difficult without local replacements.
For Atlanta, the immediate yardsticks will be monthly APD crime briefings and the national datasets that arrive later in the year. CCJ analysts say the FBI’s full 2025 tallies could show a national homicide rate near historic lows if the city-level declines hold up, a benchmark that will help determine whether 2025 was a durable turning point or a pause in a longer cycle.
