Asher made clear that despite some uncertainty surrounding the significance of 2025 crime data, “it is decently clear that the 2026 murder rate will be by far the lowest ever recorded.” While the numbers are already significant, it is expected that the 2026 murder rate will be 20% lower than the previous all-time low recorded in 2014. The estimated murder rate for 2025 was as low as 4.2 per 100,000 people, lower than the previous record of 4.4 per 100,000 people in 2014. The 2026 murder rate is expected to be even lower than that of 2025, with a rate between 3 and 3.8 per 100,000 people, an all-time low. Like the recent post-pandemic decline in crime, the crime decline of the 1990s created shifts in policy and upended criminological theories.