In 2025, Memphis reported the fewest crimes within its city limits since 2010, according to data released by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.
TBI has released this data in its Crime In Tennessee report every year since 2010. The Commercial Appeal has tracked that data annually, and found the number of crimes reported dropped nearly 19% in 2025 compared to 2024.
It also dropped 28% from the nearly record high numbers seen in 2023.
Some of the biggest declines were seen in the number of murders and aggravated assaults reported. For the first time since 2019, Memphis reported less than 200 murders and less than 10,000 aggravated assaults, with 188 murders and 9,455 aggravated assaults reported in 2025.
Since peaking in 2023, crime has trended
downward and 2025 was no exception. Even before President Donald Trump established the Memphis Safe Task Force, which flooded the city with additional federal law enforcement, crime continued that trend.
The task force began operations in October and worked mostly to clear outstanding warrants through the last three months of the year. Prior to it being in Memphis, the Federal Bureau of Investigation spent summer 2025 doing much of the same with Operation Viper.
The final outcome was the lowest overall crime rate in 15 years.
Crime rates account for changes in population. Memphis has seen a decline in residents since 2015, yet it saw an increase in the number of overall crimes committed for much of that time period. The result was a crime rate higher than it would have been if the population had stayed even.
Memphis saw another population decrease in 2025, with 606,629 residents per TBI's estimate, making the nearly 18% decrease in its crime rate all the more notable.
Despite the crime rate declines, Memphis still topped the nation in its overall crime rate, according to Federal Bureau of Investigation data. FBI data showed Memphis' overall major violent and property crime rate was narrowly ahead of that of Oakland, California in 2025.
Memphis also topped the list in violent crime, with Detroit. and Little Rock, Arkansas following it.
But Memphis no longer had the highest property crime rate in 2025, having the fourth-most property crime reported in 2025. According to the FBI, Oakland, California, Portland and St. Louis had slightly more property crime reported than Memphis.
How did Memphis' crime change in 2025?
TBI's annual crime report looks at all Group A, or major offenses, reported by municipalities across the state. It breaks those crimes into three categories: crimes against persons, crimes against property and crimes against society.
Societal offenses, which includes drug offenses, gambling offenses, weapons offenses, and prostitution offenses, was the only category to not decrease in 2025.
Data showed moderate increases in drug offenses, animal cruelty offenses, and gambling offenses. It did, however, show a 10.5% decrease in reported weapons violations, a 42.6% decrease in prostitution offenses, and a 1.75% drop in gambling promotion and operation offenses compared to 2024.
Memphis' overall violent crime saw a moderate decrease in 2025 after it rose slightly in 2024. Compared to 2024, Memphis' reported violent crime rate dropped 9.5%. In terms of raw violent crimes reported, Memphis saw the fewest violent crimes committed since 2010.
Simple assaults saw the smallest drop year-over-year with a 0.9% decrease. Most other categories, including murders and aggravated assaults (which include nonfatal shootings), saw steep declines. Aggravated assaults dropped 26.6% and murders dropped 24.8% compared to 2024.
Rapes and sexual assaults also dropped 21.9% and 22.1%, respectively, in 2025.
Property crime saw the largest decrease in 2025, dropping by just over 25% compared to 2024. It was by far the fewest number of property crimes reported in Memphis since 2010.
Key among the staggering decrease were declines in motor vehicle theft (down 43.5%), theft from a vehicle (down 47.3%), vandalisms (down 27.8%) and burglaries (down 21.7%).
Shoplifting, a fairly common offense in Memphis, also saw a decrease year-over-year. There were 17.9% fewer shoplifting incidents reported in 2025 than in 2024, reflecting the lowest reported number since 2022.
Arsons remained mostly stagnant, with a 0.6% increase compared to 2024, but identity thefts, computer hackings, theft of motor vehicle parts and extortion offenses each rose. Various stolen property offenses also increased about 10.4% compared to 2024.
Memphis clears nearly half of all murders for first time since 2017
Memphis has routinely struggled to make arrests for crimes reported within its city limits. For the last three years Memphis cleared less than 20% of crimes reported.
That changed in 2025, however, with Memphis police clearing 21.4% of its cases, the largest clearance rate since 2021.
The TBI and FBI considered a case cleared when at least one person suspected of taking part in the crime is arrested. A case can also be cleared if the suspect is believed to be dead or if they have some form of immunity.
Clearances and arrest numbers rarely line up neatly since some offenses involve multiple suspects. For example, if four people commit a crime and only one of them is arrested, the crime is considered a single clearance. If all four of those people are arrested, it is still considered a single clearance.
The Memphis Police Department internally tracks clearances with a broader definition, including arrest warrants issued as a cleared case regardless of whether the subject of that warrant has been arrested.
In 2025, Memphis cleared 40.4% of its murder cases. The increase is a 53% bump from 2024 when it cleared 26.4% of its murders. Between 2022 and 2024, Memphis police cleared fewer than 30% of its murders within the year that murder was committed.
The last time its clearance rate for murders was above 40% was in 2017, when it cleared 49.7% of them.
Memphis' clearance rate for societal crimes remains high, though, with many being cleared near the 60% mark and above. Gambling and prostitution clearances ranged from 90% to 100% in 2025 while drug violations were cleared 59% of the time and drug equipment violations were cleared 67% of the time.
About 36% of weapon violations were cleared in 2025 and 31% of Memphis' animal cruelty reports were cleared.
Lucas Finton covers crime, policing, jails, the courts and criminal justice policy for The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached by phone or email: (901)208-3922 and Lucas.Finton@commercialappeal.com, and followed on X @LucasFinton.
This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Memphis touts fewest crimes since 2010. Take a look at the data
