165 homicides is the lowest Detroit has recorded since 1964. It is also 25.3 per 100,000.
Detroit's 2025 homicide count dropped 19% from 203 in 2024 — itself the lowest since 1965. Two consecutive historic lows. The trajectory is real. The rate is still roughly 6.5 times the national murder rate of 3.9 per 100,000. Progress and severity are both true at the same time. Anyone making a housing decision in Detroit needs to hold both.
The Count
165 homicides. 529 rapes. 953 robberies. 9,045 aggravated assaults. These are 2025 full-year numbers from the MCCA Violent Crime Report 2025 Year-End. Every category moved down. None of them crossed into ordinary.
Nearly 25 aggravated assaults happen in Detroit every day. That volume — compounded across 365 days — is what produces a murder rate 6.5 times above the national average, even after back-to-back historic single-year drops.
52% of violent crimes go unreported nationally, per BJS NCVS. The numbers above are a floor. For every recorded incident, roughly one more went unrecorded. The rate you see is not the rate you live in.
2024 vs. 2025: By Category
The year-over-year comparison across primary offense types, drawn from the MCCA Violent Crime Report 2025 Year-End:
| Offense Category | 2024 | 2025 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Homicides | 203 | 165 | −19% |
| Rape | 613 | 529 | −13.7% |
| Robbery | 1,209 | 953 | −21.2% |
| Aggravated Assault | 9,878 | 9,045 | −8.4% |
Note on underreporting: 52% of violent crimes go unreported nationally (BJS NCVS). 76% of sexual assaults are never reported. The numbers in this table are recorded incidents. The real volume is higher. Full FBI 2025 Table 8 data has not yet been released; MCCA figures represent the current best available annual total.
6.5× the National Murder Rate
25.3 per 100,000. The national murder rate is 3.9 per 100,000. Detroit runs at roughly 6.5 times that baseline. Detroit's homicide rate declined 37% from its 2022 peak to 2024, per the Citizens Research Council of Michigan — and 2025 extended that run. The gap between Detroit and the national figure is narrowing. It is not closed.
Translate that rate into cumulative probability. At 25.3 homicides per 100,000 — and a broader violent crime picture that includes thousands of assaults and hundreds of robberies annually:
- The murder rate alone is 6.5 times the national benchmark
- Aggravated assaults top 9,000 per year in a city of roughly 652,000
- Robberies remain nearly three times the national per-capita rate
- The 37% homicide decline from the 2022 peak is the most sustained improvement in decades
These are not hypothetical. They are the arithmetic of living in a city where 165 people were killed in the best year the city has had since before the Beatles released their first album. The city average does not tell you about your block, but it sets the starting point for every housing decision.
Progress Is Real. 25.3 Per 100,000 Is Still 25.3 Per 100,000.
A 19% single-year homicide reduction following a 2024 that was already the lowest in 60 years is not noise. Most cities move two to five percent in either direction annually. Detroit moved nearly one-fifth — for the second consecutive year. The 2022-to-2025 homicide decline of roughly 37% is a structural shift that shows up consistently in both city data and MCCA reporting.
Robberies fell 21% in a single year. Aggravated assaults dropped 8.4%. The surveillance infrastructure, community intervention programs, and enforcement strategies that drove 2024's numbers continued to deliver in 2025. The data says so. Two years of consecutive records is not a fluke.
56% of violent crimes go unsolved nationally (BJS). In a city recording 165 homicides and thousands of assaults, that means more than half of victims never see anyone held accountable. Progress at the aggregate level coexists with a clearance problem that leaves most cases open. Six out of ten families don't get an arrest.
Still Among the Highest Nationally
Detroit's 2024 homicide rate of 31.4 per 100,000 ranked among the highest of major US cities, per the Citizens Research Council of Michigan's peer-city analysis. The 2025 rate of approximately 25.3 per 100,000 continues that decline but does not change the city's position relative to the national distribution. Memphis and St. Louis have historically clustered near the top of this ranking alongside Detroit. The 37% decline from 2022 is the steepest sustained improvement of any large city in that peer group over the same window.
That national context anchors every neighborhood conversation. Detroit has approximately 170 distinct neighborhoods. The crime rate in Rosedale Park is not the crime rate in parts of the east side. But every neighborhood starts from the same city-level context: a murder rate more than six times the national figure, even after the best two-year run since the 1960s.
Geography matters enormously within Detroit. The downtown core, Midtown corridor, and northwest residential neighborhoods record crime rates substantially below the citywide average. The highest-violence precincts on the east side pull the aggregate up. Knowing which half of that distribution your address sits in is the actual question.
See your specific Detroit address
The city average is 25.3 homicides per 100,000. Your block has a different number. SafeScore builds an address-level risk score using crime data, incident patterns, and proximity factors for any Detroit address.
Score your addressHow to Check Your Detroit Address
City-wide numbers tell you the baseline. They do not tell you about the block you are considering signing a lease on. Two addresses one mile apart in Detroit can sit at opposite ends of the risk distribution. The city average captures neither.
The Detroit Police Department publishes incident-level crime data through the city's open data portal at detroitmi.gov. Organized by precinct, date, offense type, and block address. Accurate. Not formatted for someone who needs a fast answer about whether a street is safe.
Detroit divides into eight police precincts. The 7th Precinct on the lower east side has historically recorded the highest incident rates. The 12th Precinct in the northwest records among the lowest. Precinct-level data is a starting point — not a final answer.
For a single score that aggregates violent crime density, robbery proximity, and historical incident patterns at the specific address level, SafeScore compiles that data into one number benchmarked against the rest of Detroit and against national baselines.
What 2026 Looks Like From Here
Two consecutive record-low homicide years create a new baseline expectation. Detroit Police Department's Q3 2025 data showed violent crime continuing to fall well beyond 2024's already-historic pace. If 2025's trajectory holds into 2026, the city could approach a murder rate that, for the first time in decades, no longer anchors the top of the national large-city distribution.
That is the optimistic scenario. The structural reality is that Detroit's population has declined from over 1.8 million at its peak to roughly 652,000 today. A smaller population base means each homicide carries more statistical weight. It also means the service infrastructure, employment base, and density that suppress crime in other recovering cities are thinner in Detroit than the raw numbers suggest.
The 37% decline from the 2022 peak is real. Sustaining it requires continued investment in the intervention programs, clearance rates, and economic conditions that produced it. 2025 delivered the lowest homicide count since 1964. 2026 will show whether that was a floor or a new trajectory.
For anyone making an address-level decision in Detroit right now: the improvement is in the data. So is the gap. 25.3 per 100,000 is still 25.3 per 100,000.
Frequently Asked Questions
Detroit's murder rate is approximately 25.3 per 100,000 — roughly 6.5 times the national rate of 3.9 per 100,000. 2025 brought the fewest homicides the city has recorded since 1964. Downtown and Midtown corridors carry lower risk than the citywide figure. The Detroit Institute of Arts, Little Caesars Arena, Comerica Park, and the riverfront sit in areas with lower incident density than the city average. That context matters. So does the baseline: the city's murder rate is still more than six times the national figure, even in its best year in six decades. Geography within Detroit is the variable that changes the calculation — not the city average, which is already baked in.
Detroit recorded 165 homicides in 2025 — a 19% drop from 203 in 2024 and the lowest since 1964. The 2025 murder rate is approximately 25.3 per 100,000, versus a national rate of 3.9 per 100,000. MCCA data shows 529 rapes, 953 robberies, and 9,045 aggravated assaults for the year — all down from 2024. 52% of violent crimes go unreported nationally, so these counts are a floor. The rate has been falling for three consecutive years. It remains among the highest in the country.
Rosedale Park, Palmer Woods, Sherwood Forest, and parts of Indian Village and Boston-Edison record lower crime rates than Detroit's overall average. The northwest quadrant — including areas around the University of Detroit Mercy corridor — posts lower incident density than east side precincts. "Safest in Detroit" still means living inside a city with a murder rate 6.5 times the national baseline. Neighborhood averages mask block-by-block variation. Address-level data is more reliable than neighborhood labels for any real decision.
165 homicides in a city of approximately 652,000 residents produces a rate of roughly 25.3 per 100,000. The national murder rate is 3.9 per 100,000. Detroit's rate is roughly 6.5 times the national figure. That is Detroit in its best year since 1964 — down 19% from 203 homicides in 2024, and down 37% from the 2022 peak. That is what progress looks like inside a severe baseline.
Yes. The Detroit Police Department publishes incident-level crime data at detroitmi.gov, filterable by location and date range. Zip codes in the 48219 (northwest) and 48236 (east side, Grosse Pointe-adjacent) ranges record lower crime densities than zip codes in the 48204, 48205, and 48213 ranges. For address-level risk scoring that aggregates violent crime density, robbery proximity, and historical incident patterns into a single score, SafeScore compiles that data for any Detroit address.
Your Detroit address has a score
25.3 per 100,000 is the city average. Your block is a specific number. Enter any Detroit address and get a precise risk score benchmarked against city and national data — not just a ZIP code average.
Check your address nowSources
- Wikipedia — Crime in Detroit — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Detroit
- MCCA Violent Crime Report 2025 Year-End — https://majorcitieschiefs.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/MCCA-Violent-Crime-Report-2025-and-2024-Year-End.pdf
- Citizens Research Council of Michigan — Detroit Reduced Homicide Rates Peer City Analysis — https://crcmich.org/detroit-reduced-homicide-rates-peer-city-analysis
- City of Detroit — 3rd Quarter 2025 Violent Crime Press Release — https://detroitmi.gov/news/3rd-quarter-numbers-show-2025-violent-crime-detroit-dropping-far-beyond-historic-2024-results
- FBI Crime Data Explorer — 2024 baseline data — https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov
- Bureau of Justice Statistics — National Crime Victimization Survey — 52% unreported, 56% unsolved — https://bjs.ojp.gov
- U.S. Census Bureau — Detroit City, Michigan QuickFacts — https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/detroitcitymichigan