Here's some good news to start 2026: Crime went down in Austin last year.
And the drop isn't insignificant.
In 2025, the city saw its lowest number of murders since 2020, and, overall, all violent crime dropped, along with property crime. The decrease brings Austin back to pre-pandemic normals, the Austin Police Department says, but it's also part of a larger national trend of crime-reduction in the U.S.
How much did crime rates fall in Austin in 2025?
Back in 2020 the city saw the highest number of murders, 60, since it began formally counting crime statistics in the 1960s. In 2021, that number soared to nearly 90.
But since then the number of homicides has trended downward.
APD Assistant Chief Angie Jones says last year, the number of homicides dropped to 55 — down from 66 in 2024. Jones says it's been the product of more collaboration between units within the police department, as well as other city departments
"We have a really strong team there. They're very thorough and they do a phenomenal job," she said. "And that gets all of these dangerous felons off the streets."
Jones said, homicides in 2025 were down 23% compared to 2024. Aggravated assaults were down 13% and robberies were down 5%.
Property crimes also dropped significantly Those crimes dipped 7% over 2025 and they've dropped by nearly 20% since 2020, Jones said.
Why did crime rates drop in 2025?
For the last five years, experts wondered if high crime rates in the pandemic would be the "new normal."
Jeff Asher, a national expert who runs the Real-Time Crime Analytics dashboard, says this year, to him, felt like a tipping point.
Asher had an analysis out just before Christmas that found the U.S. saw a record drop in the national murder rate last year compared to the year before and crime overall had dropped nationally over the last three years.
Asher said Austin’s drop in crime is in line with the overall trend over the last few years. Austin didn’t see as dramatic a dip that many cities did in 2025. Still, over the last few years, the city's drop in crime has been noteworthy.
"There have been less significant declines sort of across the board in Austin this year relative to last year," Asher said. "But certainly relative to 2023 and the early part of the pandemic, you've seen pretty dramatic drops in, in Austin."
As Assistant Chief Jones sees it, APD's push to get more officers out on patrols has contributed to that longer term reduction in crime — it's also chipped away at slow response times, which have dogged APD for years.
"When we get a cop on scene quickly ... the solvability rate goes up significantly," she said. "That really helps. We are able to identify witnesses quickly. We can get suspects in custody quickly. So that's a huge assistance to investigations on the back end."
Is Austin safe?
Austin’s crime rate has been a hot topic for years. Both the mayor and police chief have made a concerted effort to address crime and the perception people have around it — the sense they don’t feel safe.
Jeff Asher said there are cases that get a lot of attention, like assaults downtown, murders, officer-involved shootings that can make Austin "feel" like a thunderdome.
But the national crime expert and UT alum, says, from the outside, he doesn't view Austin as an empirically unsafe city.
"Certainly DKR [Memorial Stadium] can be like a thunderdome at times, but for the most part, Austin has a relatively low murder rate. It has a relatively low violent crime rate," Asher said. "I think about breakfast tacos a lot more than I do ... crime when I think about Austin."
But Jones says the challenge for APD isthe perception some people have that Austin is an unsafe city and the department isn't doing its job.
"When you look at the numbers, Austin is a safe city," Jones said. "I think that some of the perception is that people might feel a certain way, but it's not necessarily criminality."
Still, Jones credits the department with preventing and solving crime in a year, like many, APD was short-staffed. Jones says there's still work to be done, but staffing is a key goal for the department in 2026.
"The reality is that our community demands more and they deserve more," she said. "And we are going to give them the best of the best."
