Chicago Homicides Down Nearly 50% and the Gains Are Citywide

While city-level changes are important indicators of broad trends, research across many cities consistently shows that violence tends to concentrate in a small proportion of blocks. Chicago fits the pattern. For years, Chicago’s violent crime has been concentrated in a relatively small number of places and persistent in many of the same places year after year. Over the past 10 years in Chicago, 79 percent of homicides have been concentrated in the 20 most violent Community Areas, despite these neighborhoods representing only 29 percent of the city population. 

Nearly every high-violence community in Chicago saw reductions in homicides in 2025. Figure 2 shows that most such communities exceeded the citywide reduction of 28.4 percent. Some of those that did not, notably Austin, North Lawndale, and Humboldt Park, have seen dramatic declines over a slightly longer period. Among the high-violence communities, only two did not see large reductions in homicides between 2020 and 2025.

Safety gains were similarly widespread at the tract level. More than four in five of Chicago’s census tracts had fewer homicides in 2025 than their average for 2020–2024. This measurement includes tracts with no homicides in 2025, even if the 2020–2024 average was also zero, meaning there was no change.