Crime Prevention and Mental Health Spending May Have Contributed to Drop in Violent Crime

In August, the FBI released its annual report on national crime trends, showing that murder rates in the United States neared historic lows in 2025. Other evidence indicates they have continued to decline through 2026. It’s a sharp reversal from 2020, when murder and other violent crime rates jumped dramatically.

What’s behind this decline? Some credit increased enforcement measures by the Trump administration. But that is far too simplistic, as violent crime rates began falling well before Donald Trump’s return to office. A better-supported theory, grounded in a growing body of evidence, points to the unprecedented surge of federal dollars going to state and local governments since 2021.

The federal aid was intended to offset the economic effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, which decimated state and local budgets. Local governments used this infusion of funds to launch new initiatives, including programs to prevent violence or expand access to behavioral health treatments. Since programs like these have historically been credited with helping reduce crime, the larger scale of investments over the last five years could have magnified that impact.

Experts recognize that many factors affect crime. Improving public safety requires coordinated work across government to both prevent harm and hold people accountable when they break the law. Law enforcement has a role to play, as do community organizations, which can help address mental health crises, prevent overdose deaths, ensure stable housing, and reduce unnecessary burdens on local police. (In a separate series, we chronicle the impact of the Justice Department’s abrupt termination in April 2025 of grants valued at more than $800 million, which impacted similar work.)

Although crime prevention and behavioral health programs implemented and expanded since 2021 have drawn praise from local policymakers and their communities, their future remains uncertain. Most of the funding that underwrote this expanded government capacity is set to expire at the end of 2026, with uncertain prospects for renewal. Policymakers at all levels of government should find ways to salvage or strengthen programs that have improved community well-being and safety around the country.

From 2019 to 2020, the rate of violent crime rose dramatically. According to the FBI, the country’s murder rate increased by about 30 percent and the rate of aggravated assaults by about 10 percent. Communities of all types were affected, from large cities to small towns and rural areas.

Then, almost as quickly as they spiked, violent crime rates fell. According to national data released last month, murder and assault rates decreased by around 38 and 12 percent, respectively, from 2020 to 2025. Those trends are likely to continue through 2026, according to Jeff Asher, a crime data analyst whose Crime Index aggregates information from police agencies throughout the country. Crime rates are “not simply returning to their pre-pandemic levels,” Adam Gelb of the Council on Criminal Justice notes. “They’re blowing past them.”

Federal aid to state and local governments increased enormously over this same period, with the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 serving as the main source of funding. That legislation included the $350 billion State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund designed to offset fiscal strain the Covid-19 pandemic caused. Some of this money went directly to plugging budget deficits and replacing tax revenue lost due to pandemic-era economic contraction. But state and local leaders also used American Rescue Plan Act funding for other needs. Though estimates vary, almost 9 percent of State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund dollars were slated for projects specifically related to public safety.

Local governments received additional money through the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act of 2022. That legislation authorized millions in additional grant funding focused on reducing gun crime, including $250 million more for community violence intervention programs. It also included another $1 billion to hire and train 14,000 school-based mental health professionals.

According to some experts, this spending contributed to falling crime by allowing states to cover budget shortfalls, pilot new crime prevention strategies, and reverse a falloff in government payrolls. The evidence does show a significant expansion in spending on traditional law enforcement responses as well as newer community-based models — with the latter especially receiving unprecedented support from the federal government. Other money flowed to programs designed to address mental health issues and homelessness, among other public safety challenges. Examples of this new spending include:

Law enforcement

Investments in bolstering and improving policing are classic safety expenditures. According to the National League of Cities, $713 million of American Rescue Plan Act funds have supported “local public safety workforce development,” which includes police hiring and retention. Still more went to safety-related equipment investments, such as purchasing ambulances, expanding rapid DNA testing, reducing medical examiners’ backlogs, and providing safety locks to gun owners. Officials in St. Louis, Missouri, for example, specifically credit those federal funds with helping to increase the volume of 911 calls answered within 10 seconds from 57 to 84 percent in less than a year.

Community Violence Prevention

The American Rescue Plan Act and the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act substantially expanded the amount of money available for community violence intervention initiatives — neighborhood programs designed to head off dangerous situations, which make up a broad category that ranges from summer youth employment programs to direct outreach to at-risk people. Although relatively new, these programs have shown remarkable promise. Brookings documents $684 million spent on violence prevention initiatives through the American Rescue Plan Act, marking a historic federal investment in these programs. Similarly, in 2022 alone, the Department of Justice drew on Bipartisan Safer Communities Act dollars to spend $100 million on such programs in communities from Hartford, Connecticut, to Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

In Newark, New Jersey, for example, community violence intervention initiatives form a key part of the city’s broader violence reduction strategy. In 2021, the city announced a plan to expand that work, committing $19 million in funding from the American Rescue Plan Act and other sources. Murders reached a historic low in the city last year, with violent crime also falling by around 9 percent.

Baltimore committed $37 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding to community violence prevention, alongside other investments in community well-being and a focused deterrence initiative, which blends law enforcement and outreach by social service providers. The city saw crime fall dramatically since 2022, with the number of murders reduced by half between 2022 and 2025.

Chicago, a pioneer of community violence intervention work, grew government support for these programs from $8 million to $175 million from 2019 to 2023, partially through funds from the State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund. Murder counts in Chicago have fallen by double digits every year since 2022.

Indianapolis allocated $100 million to implement a gun violence reduction strategy, described as “the largest per capita investment in violence intervention in the country.” In 2025, the city’s violent crime rate fell to its lowest level since 1988.

Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, which includes Charlotte, increased spending on violence prevention from $400,000 to almost $3.3 million. Violent crime in Charlotte dropped by 21.3 percent between 2024 and 2025.

To be sure, these cities also worked to bolster policing and other public safety strategies. But American Rescue Plan Act funding on its own represents a major spike in federal crime prevention investments.

Behavioral Health

There is a broad consensus among medical and law enforcement professionals that untreated mental health issues and substance use disorder can contribute to crime and concerns about safety. Recent federal spending helped to build out programs to address those challenges. For example, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act included $750 million for state crisis intervention programs, such as the implementation of “red flag” laws to temporarily bar someone’s access to firearms if they may pose a threat to themselves or others.

At the city level, Houston — where violent crime fell by 20 percent last year — spent $13 million to launch a mobile crisis outreach team. The program makes trained clinicians available around the clock to respond to mental health crises, which can reduce the burden on police. Chicago directed another $20 million to a program that provides mental health services in nontraditional locations, such as libraries and food pantries, and through street psychiatry teams to reach homeless people and others who have limited access to treatment.

Housing and Community Development

While visible homelessness creates safety concerns among businesses and residents, many in law enforcement agree that police are often not the most effective response. Research also suggests that an increase in eviction rates is associated with a rise in gun violence. Improving access to housing could thus potentially improve both the perception and reality of safety in a community.

The American Rescue Plan Act allowed cities to invest in several programs seeking to improve housing access and reduce homelessness. Although these programs are hard to track in the aggregate, by one estimate, cities and states spent $2 billion to combat homelessness and more than $4 billion for programs such as eviction prevention and affordable housing development. According to Baltimore’s publicly available data, for example, the city devoted $75 million to homelessness services, such as shelters and a “housing accelerator fund” that helps to create supportive housing for people in need.

Broader Investments in Infrastructure

Improving lighting, constructing green spaces, and remediating vacant lots can make communities healthier and safer. These improvements can improve people’s sense of safety and well-being and reduce the incidence of violent crimes, including aggravated assaults and firearm violence. The American Rescue Plan Act, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, and other funding vehicles helped support a variety of upgrades and repairs to local infrastructure. Baltimore, for one, spent $3.3 million on incentives for developers working to convert vacant buildings into housing and another $41 million on parks and recreation.

It would be far too simplistic to credit any of these initiatives as being singlehandedly responsible for the crime decline. Crime trends are notoriously complex even in relatively stable periods, and state and local policymakers tried a wide variety of tactics to reduce crime after 2020, including, as noted, investing in policing strategies.

The scale of the American Rescue Plan Act spending, however, is significant, eclipsing even major programs like the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant, which sends about $300 million to state and local law enforcement annually after set-asides. By one estimate, the State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund may have briefly doubled the value of grants to state and local governments for public safety from 2021 through 2025.

Most, if not all, federal funding through the American Rescue Plan Act and the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act will run out in 2026.

This fiscal cliff may require scaling back or even terminating important initiatives. For example, Baltimore’s city budget will help partially maintain its office for coordinating citywide violence reduction strategy. The city’s smaller nonprofits face even tougher choices. Similarly, with the American Rescue Plan Act sunsetting, Mecklenburg County will likely have to reduce the scope of its gun-lock distribution program and other gun safety measures. St. Louis may need to cut support for dozens of community-based violence prevention programs.

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Policymakers must often act based on incomplete information. That is especially true for complex social problems such as crime that provide few clear-cut answers. Future research can — and should — seek to untangle how federal investments in crime prevention and behavioral health could have contributed to local crime trends. But such evidence takes time to develop.

Unfortunately, in the meantime, federal attention and resources have shifted toward costly and aggressive enforcement strategies, especially in the immigration context. Together, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection have roughly $200 billion on hand, or two-thirds of the entire $350 billion allocated by the American Rescue Plan Act to state and local governments over its five-year run. But the public safety benefits of these approaches are far from clear, even as their risks grow increasingly apparent.

As leaders throughout the country seek to keep crime rates declining, they should take care to maintain policies that have clearer benefits and fewer risks. That means supporting local police departments and bolstering community-based violence prevention — while increasing mental health and drug treatment and expanding access to housing. That work improves the lives of Americans and may enhance public safety in the process.

With research support from Sophie Schmults, Greta Colloton, Paul Ibuzor, and Aidan Garagic, and research and fact-checking support from Jules Verdone.