Chart assignment
Charts to read and discuss
Read each chart, then answer its questions. Every chart shows its source and date; open it for a table of the numbers and the data to download.
Chart 1 of 1 · Crime
Which big U.S. cities' murder rates fell most in the last year?
The interactive chart needs JavaScript. The numbers are on the chart's page.
Of the 79 big U.S. cities (250,000 people or more) whose police reported every month of 2025 and the year before to the FBI, the murder rate fell most in Irving, TX (-80.1%), Tampa, FL (-51.5%) and Glendale, AZ (-51%) in 2025, and rose most in El Paso, TX (29.3%) and Omaha, NE (27.8%). Across the U.S. it fell 16.5%. A city with few murders can swing a lot in a year, so cities with fewer than 10 murders in the earlier year are left out, as are departments that missed a month (for 2024 and 2025, New Orleans, Orlando and St. Petersburg, Florida). Each rate is per person the department serves.
Questions to discuss
- In one sentence of your own, what does this chart show?
- Find the biggest change or difference in the chart. What might explain it?
- Who collected these numbers, and how recent are they? What else would you want to know before drawing a conclusion?
Source: FBI Crime Data Explorer, Uniform Crime Reporting Program (Public domain (U.S. government work); source FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program) · Data as of Dec 31, 2025
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