Baltimore records nearly 50-year low in homicides in 2025

Baltimore experienced its lowest number of killings in nearly 50 years in 2025, as a city once known for its crime-ridden reputation has become a public safety success.

The Baltimore Police Department recorded 133 homicides by year’s end, well below the 171 slayings recorded in 1977.

“Baltimore will be ending the year with the lowest number of homicides in DECADES,” Mayor Brandon Scott, a Democrat, posted on X. “We know that this work isn’t finished yet. We have a long way to go. But this is real progress.”

The 2025 numbers have been part of Baltimore’s steady reduction in violence that started three years earlier.

The 261 slayings in 2023 broke an eight-year streak of more than 300 homicides in the city. That deadly era began with Freddie Gray’s in-custody death in 2015 and was sustained by the national crime spike during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Homicides fell to 194 by the end of 2024, marking the first time since the 1970s that the city saw fewer than 200 homicides in back-to-back years.

In 2025, the drop in slayings was so pronounced that it almost matched the 131 homicide total from 1965.

The country has taken notice of Baltimore’s turnaround. Last spring, U.S. News & World Report did not include Baltimore in one of its “Most Dangerous Places in the U.S. in 2024-2025.” Charm City had been a fixture on the annual list in recent years due to its perennially high homicide rate.

But who deserves credit for the plummeting homicide numbers remains an open debate.

The Baltimore Police Department touted its proactive patrolling and clearance rate, or the frequency with which a crime results in an arrest, on Thursday for contributing to “record-low levels of violent crime.”

Baltimore State’s Attorney Ivan Bates taking office in 2023 coincided with the beginning of the crime decline, and his crackdown on illegal guns became the cornerstone of his work.

He said last year that about 6,000 adults were responsible for most shootings in the city. Midway through 2025, Mr. Bates said about 2,500 of them had been put behind bars.

The Washington Times contacted the state’s attorney’s office for comment on the homicide totals from last year, but did not immediately receive a response. The top prosecutor did tell The Baltimore Sun that the police statistics show his office’s tactics have proven effective.

“Our commitment remains unwavering,” Mr. Bates said, according to The Sun. “We will continue to build on this progress, confront violence wherever it occurs, and work tirelessly to make Baltimore a city where every resident feels safe, heard and protected.”

While Mr. Scott has credited police and prosecutors for helping bring down the violence, his public appearances reveal a soft spot for the city’s anti-violence initiatives.

Mr. Scott, this week, thanked members of the police’s Group Violence Reduction Strategy team, which establishes relationships with people at-risk for violence and connects them with social services.

Mr. Bates, however, has shown little regard for some of the violence interruption initiatives championed by the mayor.

Last month, the prosecutor said he would not use the $80,000 allocated for the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement because the agency operates “under a cloak of secrecy” and doesn’t take victims into account.

The mayor’s office called the move a “distraction” at the time, but Mr. Scott has maintained that all elements of the public safety ecosystem are responsible for the drop in killings.