U.S. Violent Crime Hit a Record Decline in 2025 — But Domestic Violence Killings Moved the Opposite Direction
The United States violent crime rate fell 9.3% in 2025, the largest year-to-year drop since the FBI began estimating crime trends. At the same time, domestic violence homicides rose in multiple jurisdictions, and the share of all violent crimes tied to domestic violence reached 27.5% nationally. A 2026 FBI report found that domestic violence's portion of total U.S. violent crime climbed from 25% in 2020 to 27.5% in 2024, against the broader backdrop of declining overall violence. An FBI domestic violence special report documented more than 11,000 domestic violence murder victims and an additional 1.1 million victims of domestic violence nationally. The National Domestic Violence Hotline answered one million calls in 2025, up from nearly 637,000 in 2020. The Guardian. FBI
Chicago homicides fell from 805 in 2021 to 425 in 2025, while domestic violence killings in the city increased by 15% between 2024 and 2025. Kansas City, Missouri, recorded its second-deadliest year for homicides tied to domestic violence in 2025, even as overall homicides there dropped since 2023. Ohio experienced its deadliest year for domestic violence killings, with the Ohio Domestic Violence Network counting 157 homicides between July 2024 and June 2025 — a 37% increase from the previous year. Of those 157 killings, 144 involved firearms. The Guardian. Fox19
Hamilton County, Ohio, which includes Cincinnati, had one of the highest numbers of fatal domestic violence cases in the state, behind Franklin and Cuyahoga counties. The Hamilton County Prosecutor's Office reported that 208 people faced at least one misdemeanor or felony domestic violence charge from January 1 through 2025. The YWCA of Greater Cincinnati helped 334 adults and 296 children receive domestic violence services in 2025. Fox19
Among the cases driving these numbers: In August 2025, prosecutors indicted three suspects in the 2023 killing of India Kinamore, a 26-year-old pregnant woman killed in her Colerain Township apartment. Hamilton County Prosecutor Connie Pillich said Kayvon Warren, identified as the baby's father who did not want the baby, had two family members shoot Kinamore while she was sleeping. In June 2025, Timothy Shoulders was arrested in Lincoln Heights, Ohio, after allegedly shooting his boyfriend Terrell Howell in the face following an argument over Howell collecting his belongings and asking for his wallet. Fox19
In April 2026, eight children were killed and two women were injured in a domestic-violence-related shooting in Shreveport, Louisiana. An analysis of FBI and state data by a Salt Lake City local news station found that domestic violence is the leading cause of homicide in Utah. The Guardian. The Guardian (2025)
The divergence between falling street crime and rising intimate-partner violence coincides with significant disruptions to the federal funding architecture that supports survivor services. Early in the second Trump administration, federal officials cut hundreds of millions in grants from research institutions and domestic violence prevention and response non-profits serving people of color, LGBTQ+ people, and people with disabilities. The federal government told affected non-profits their grants were terminated because their work no longer aligned with the administration's goals. Some grants, including those for pet-friendly shelters and domestic violence hotlines, were ultimately restored. The Guardian. Mother Jones
The National Network to End Domestic Violence warns that Trump's proposed 2027 budget includes a nearly $30 million reduction in funding for grant programs for transitional housing and legal assistance. Nikhita Ved, chief programs officer for the National Domestic Violence Hotline, said the number one need articulated by callers is housing and number two is legal support. Domestic violence non-profits report rising requests for both, even as funding uncertainty intensifies. Anita Raj, executive director of the Newcomb Institute and a professor, said there is a diminishing in resources and in groups knowing if they can continue their work. The Guardian. NNEDV
Jackson County, Missouri's COMBAT program funds a dozen programs with a primary or secondary focus on domestic violence. Newhouse, an emergency shelter in Kansas City, used COMBAT grant support to expand its 24/7 hotline services; hotline staff fielded about 26 calls per day a year ago and about 43 calls per day three months later. Newhouse President and CEO Courtney Thomas told The Kansas City Star in July that her agency's shelter was at capacity every day. Jackson County Prosecutor Melesa Johnson launched an interactive dashboard to track domestic violence cases her office has filed, with data indicating a nearly 30% increase in cases filed this year compared to 2024. Jackson County COMBAT
COMBAT prevention funding also supports the Rose Brooks Center's Project SAFE initiative, which runs workshops for students from pre-K through high school in 11 schools across the Kansas City, Center, and Grandview C-4 school districts. Hope House, with COMBAT funding, embedded an advocate who works alongside Independence Police officers when they respond to domestic violence calls, and operates six domestic violence shelters. Newhouse, Rose Brooks, and Hope House share responsibility for answering Kansas City's metro-wide 816-HOTLINE, which is answered 24/7. Jackson County COMBAT
The broader context here involves several structural pressures converging at once. A 2010 report by the Office of Justice Programs found that unemployment was a significant risk factor for murder-suicide, but only when combined with a history of domestic violence, suggesting that economic precarity functions as an amplifier rather than a root cause. In 2015, Shane Elliott was charged with domestic violence after attempting to strangle and threatening to kill a woman who escaped by running a quarter of a mile to a neighbor's house, illustrating a pattern of escalation that prevention advocates have long identified as a precursor to lethal violence. Meanwhile, California in 2024 saw homicides decrease by 13.5% and rapes decrease by 1.2%, reinforcing the national pattern in which aggregate crime statistics can mask specific categories of violence moving in the opposite direction. The Guardian (2026). The Guardian (2023). PPIC
The simultaneous retreat of federal grant funding and the localized surge in intimate-partner homicides present a test of whether state and county-level infrastructure can absorb the gap. Organizations like COMBAT in Jackson County represent one model: locally funded, prevention-oriented, with embedded advocates working alongside law enforcement. Whether such models can scale, or survive without the federal grant ecosystem that has historically underwritten survivor services across multiple jurisdictions, is among the operational questions now confronting the field.
