If you look at the headlines, you'd think the world is ending. We see grainy doorbell footage of package thieves and frantic news reports about "surges" in this city or that. But if you actually sit down with a coffee and the latest 2024 and 2025 data from the FBI and the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), the picture looks a lot different.
Honestly, the "who" is often overshadowed by the "why."
But let's get into the weeds of who commits the most crimes in the us because the raw numbers tell a story that usually gets lost in political shouting matches. In 2024, the FBI’s Reported Crimes in the Nation showed that violent crime actually dropped by about 4.5% compared to the year before. Property crime fell even harder, down more than 8%.
So, who is actually behind the bars or the booking desk? It’s not a single group. It’s a mix of age, gender, and geography, all stirred together by economic pressure.
The Age Factor: It's a Young Person’s Game
Most people think of hardened career criminals when they hear about crime. The reality? Most crime is committed by people who haven't even hit their 30th birthday yet.
There's this thing criminologists call the "age-crime curve." Basically, criminal activity spikes in the late teens and early twenties and then falls off a cliff once people get older and—frankly—tired. According to the BJS, people between the ages of 18 and 24 have some of the highest arrest rates for both violent and property offenses.
Younger people are more impulsive. They often have less to lose.
But here’s a twist. Juvenile arrests—that’s anyone under 18—have actually been cratering for decades. Back in the 90s, everyone was panicked about "super-predators." It never happened. In 2024, juvenile arrests were roughly 75% lower than their peak in 1996. Even though there was a small "post-pandemic" bump in 2022 and 2023, the 2024 numbers show that kids today are generally committing way fewer crimes than their parents did.
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The Gender Gap
If we’re being totally blunt, men commit the vast majority of crimes in the US.
It’s not even close.
In 2024, men accounted for about 79% of all perceived offenders in violent incidents. For things like murder and aggravated assault, the gap is even wider. However, women’s share of arrests has been slowly creeping up over the last forty years. Back in 1980, women were only about 14% of adult arrests. Now, that number is closer to 27%.
Why? It’s likely not that women are suddenly becoming more violent. It’s more about how we police things like drug offenses and "crimes of poverty" like shoplifting, which hit women—especially single moms—pretty hard.
Breaking Down the Demographics: What Most People Get Wrong
This is where things get heated, and honestly, where most of the misinformation lives. When you look at raw arrest data, you see disparities. But raw data doesn't tell you who is more likely to be a criminal; it tells you who is more likely to be caught and what conditions they live in.
White individuals make up the largest total number of arrests in the US, simply because they are the largest part of the population. However, Black Americans are arrested at disproportionately higher rates relative to their share of the population.
But wait.
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If you look at the research from people like Robert Sampson or the 2025 studies published in the National High School Journal of Science, once you control for poverty, the "race" factor almost disappears.
Crime follows the money—or the lack of it.
When you compare a poor White neighborhood to a poor Black neighborhood, the crime rates look remarkably similar. It’s about "structural disadvantage." This means things like:
- High unemployment rates.
- Lack of access to good schools.
- High rates of vacant or boarded-up housing.
- Single-parent households under massive financial stress.
The Immigrant Myth
You’ve heard the rhetoric. People often claim that undocumented immigrants are driving a crime wave.
The data says the exact opposite.
A massive NIJ-funded study that looked at years of data (including 2024 updates) found that undocumented immigrants are arrested at less than half the rate of native-born US citizens for violent crimes. They are arrested at a quarter of the rate for property crimes.
Think about it. If you’re undocumented, the last thing you want is a run-in with the police. Native-born citizens, on the other hand, don't have that same "deportation" fear hanging over their heads.
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What Really Happened in 2024 and 2025?
We’ve come out of a weird period. The pandemic (2020-2021) saw a massive spike in murders—up nearly 30% in one year. It was a "catastrophic surge," as some experts called it.
But 2024 was a year of "historic declines."
- Murder: Down a staggering 14.9% nationally.
- Motor Vehicle Theft: Finally started to drop (down 18.6%) after the "Kia Boyz" TikTok trend made car theft skyrocket in 2023.
- Shoplifting: This is the outlier. While other crimes fell, reported shoplifting actually went up by about 9%.
It’s kinda interesting, right? Violent crime is at its lowest rate since 1969, yet everyone feels like crime is worse. Part of that is the "clearance rate." Police only solve about 52% of murders and about 23% of robberies. When people see crimes go unsolved, the fear stays high even if the total number of crimes is going down.
Why This Still Matters
Understanding who commits the most crimes in the us helps us stop wasting money on things that don't work. If we know that crime is a "young man’s game" fueled by poverty, then building more prisons for 50-year-olds doesn't make much sense.
Instead, the data points toward "violence prevention" and economic support.
For instance, in 2024, cities like Baltimore and Philadelphia saw huge drops in homicides. They didn't just "arrest their way out of it." They used community-based intervention—basically, finding the high-risk young men and getting them jobs or therapy before they pulled a trigger.
Actionable Insights: What Can You Do?
It’s easy to feel helpless when looking at crime stats, but there are actually things that make a difference in your own neighborhood.
- Support After-School Programs: Since crime peaks among the 15-24 age group, keeping teenagers busy between 3 PM and 6 PM is one of the most effective ways to lower local crime rates.
- Look at the Local Economy: Crime isn't "cultural"; it's economic. Supporting local businesses and living-wage initiatives does more for public safety than almost any other "tough on crime" policy.
- Check the Source: Next time you see a scary "crime wave" headline, go to the FBI's Crime Data Explorer (CDE). Look for the "trend" rather than a single scary incident.
- Demand Better Clearance Rates: Instead of just asking for more "patrols," ask your local government why the robbery "solve rate" is so low. Improving the quality of investigations is often more effective than just increasing the quantity of police.
Crime is complicated. It’s not a movie where there’s a clear "bad guy" demographic. It’s mostly just a reflection of where our society is hurting the most. By looking at the 2024-2025 data, we can see that things are actually getting safer, provided we keep our eyes on the real drivers: age, opportunity, and the economy.