Violent Crime In The US Is At Record Lows, But The DOJ Is Eliminating The Funding That Helped Reduce Crime

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The United States is experiencing one of thesteepest declines in violent crimein modern history, including a murder rate at itslowest point in more than a century.

Homicides across 35 major American citiesfell 21% in 2025, amounting to 922 fewer people killed. Robberies dropped 23%. Gun assaults declined 22%. Carjackings plummeted 43%.

Yet the Trump administration has yanked hundreds of millions of dollars from the programs thathelped make those numbers possible.

As a scholarfocused on how policy decisions and structural conditions shape crime in marginalized communities, I see a pattern forming that could put these historic gains at serious risk.

Wasteful grants'

In April 2025, the Department of Justice terminated365 previously awarded grants. About US$500 million in promised funds evaporated, affecting more than550 organizations across 48 states.

The cuts stretched across the public safety landscape: community violence intervention, victim services, law enforcement training, juvenile justice, offender reentry and criminal justice research.

Then-Attorney General Pam Bondi described the cancellations as eliminating wasteful grants." TheWhite House arguedthat the grant programs had been funding DEI and cultural Marxism" rather than helping to keep Americans safe.

The DOJ'sfiscal year 2026 budget proposalreduces the pool of funds for public safety and justice programs by anadditional $850 million- about a 15% decrease from the prior year.

Bipartisan programs

On the ground, the effects of the cancellations were immediate.

Initiatives implementing afederal law to supportex-inmates with temporary housing, job training and healthcare lost $40 million in funding, according tothe Brennan Center for Justice at New York Unversity.

Many of the terminated programs had deep bipartisan roots.

Project Safe Neighborhoods, acrime-reduction initiativelaunched in 2001 under President George W. Bush, lost its training funds, theCouncil on Criminal Justice found. Also axed was ananti-terrorism programthat had trainedmore than 430,000state and local law enforcement officers and other partners since 1996.

More modest programs were targeted as well.

In rural Oregon, a DOJ grant had allowed the Union County district attorney tohire an investigatorwho, after a few years of probing a 43-year-old cold case involving the killing of a 21-year-old woman, finally developed some leads. When the money was cut, the investigation stopped.

Funding cliffs

The funding cuts couldn't have come at a worse time. States and local jurisdictions were already facing looming cuts, as billions of dollars provided by President Joe Biden'sCOVID recovery planrun out on Dec. 31, 2026.

Many local governments had used that moneyto build violence prevention programs from the ground up: employing community-based mediators, launching youth employment initiatives and expanding behavioral health teams.

And now? A double funding cliff with the sudden cancellation of DOJ grants, paired with the expiration of COVID recovery money.

In Chicago, this cliff has already forced a 43% cut to the city's domestic violence prevention budget for 2026 - even as its share ofdomestic-related homicides rose 13%over the previous year.

Larger and more targeted

Criminology research helps explain the particular risks of abrupt disinvestment. Emory sociology professor Robert Agnew'sGeneral Strain Theoryidentifies a direct relationship between increased strain - economic pressure, blocked opportunities, the withdrawal of institutional support - and higher risks of criminal behavior.

Historical precedent reinforces the concern. In 2013, federal across-the-board spending cuts eliminatedservices for more than 955,000 crime victimsin a single year. The capacity of the FBI and related agencies was slashed by the equivalent ofmore than 1,000 agents.

Between 2014 and 2016, the violent crime rateclimbed 7%.

The 2025 cuts are substantially larger and more targeted, and have devastated some groups.

Equal Justice USA, a national organization working to end the death penalty and reduce violence through community-based interventions,shut down in August 2025after losing more than $3 million in DOJ grants.

Local programs like Baltimore'sLifeBridge Health's Center for Hopelost $1.2 million to provide therapy for gun violence survivors.

What shocked me the most ... was what feels like the utter cruelty of it,"said Adam Rosenberg, who runs the center, referring to the cancellation of the funds.

As of April 2026, the DOJ has not paid out$200 million in approved grantsto assist victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and human trafficking.

This comes after the department last year allowed more than 100 grants for human trafficking survivors to expire, affecting more than 5,000 victims, despite Congress allocating$88 million for these services.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania warn thatcuts to violence prevention programsare likely to lead to increases in gun crime.

What happens next

The initiatives now losing funding are the ones thathelped drive crime down in many American cities.

Community members trained in conflict mediation help extinguish tensions before they turn lethal. Youth programs provide alternatives to street economies. Forensic labs process the evidence that solves cases. Reentry programs keep people from cycling back through the system. With each serving a distinct function, together they form the infrastructure of public safety.

As funding for crime prevention from two main sources runs out, whether progress continues depends on what happens next.

Andrea Hagan is Instructor of Criminology & Justice at Loyola University New Orleans