Did The Loss Of 25,000 Cops Create A 25 Percent Reduction In Arrests?
/Did The Loss Of 25,000 Cops Create A 25 Percent Reduction In Arrests?
By: Leonard Adam Sipes, Jr.
The Council on Criminal Justice produces informative and readable reports that offer insights into the workings of the justice system. Who Gets Arrested in America contributes to our understanding of crime in America.
The 2024 arrest total was 25% lower than in 2019, the year before the pandemic, and half the number in the peak year of 1997. The combination of falling arrests and rising resident population has driven down the national arrest rate, which in 2024 was 30% lower than in 2019 and 71% below its peak in 1994.
Drug arrests, in particular, have cratered. In 2024, the drug offense rate for both adults and juveniles was roughly half the 2019 level.
Juvenile arrests now make up a much smaller share of national arrests. In 1980, 19% of arrests were of juveniles. Since 2018, this share has been at or below 7%.
Over the past four years, however, adult and juvenile arrest rates diverged: The juvenile rate rose 14% since 2020 while the adult rate was 7% lower.
Arrest rates have fallen sharply across age and sex groups, though recent trends—particularly among juveniles—differ from long-term patterns. In 2024, the adult male arrest rate was 8% lower than in 2020 and 66% below its 1989 peak; the adult female rate was 3% lower than in 2020 and 42% below its 2009 peak. Juvenile arrest rates for both sexes peaked in 1996 and remained far below those levels in 2024—85% lower for boys and 77% lower for girls—even as rates increased 10% for boys and 23% for girls between 2020 and 2024.
Racial patterns in arrest rates show notable divergence since 2020. Between 2020 and 2024, the juvenile arrest rate increased sharply for Black (+48%) and Asian (+45%) youth, compared with a more modest rise among White juveniles (+11%); rates for American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) juveniles fell 4%. Adult arrest rates show a similar split: Black (+12%) and Asian (+18%) adults experienced increases, while rates for White (-10%) and AI/AN (-17%) adults declined.
I offered “The Distressing Status Of Arrests, Crimes Solved And Incarcerations” in 2025, where I documented that federal arrests increased, overall arrests increased in 2023 after bottoming out in earlier years, according to Statista, and that crimes solved “may” be stabilizing.
Proactive police contacts with the public also plummeted during recent years.
I wrote “The United States Lost Over 25,000 Local Police Personnel” in 2025, using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics stating that:
The United States lost 25,076 local government police personnel when viewing a high point of 434,698 from November 2019 to November 2023, 409,662. These figures encompass both sworn officers and civilian police employees, indicating that the decline impacted enforcement capacity, investigative support, and victim services.
Per the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the United States lost 2,116 state government police personnel from the calendar year 2020 (102,493) to 100,377 in 2022. The good news is that, per preliminary data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the last available figure in June of 2024, local government police personnel rebounded to 426,210.
It seems obvious that the loss of tens of thousands of state and local police officers and support personnel would have an impact on arrests and victim services. Why did all those people leave law enforcement?
While arrests fell by roughly 25 percent during the same period, police staffing declined; no federal study establishes a direct causal relationship between these trends. Note that arrests declined by half when compared to the peak year of 1997, but most of the officers left after the George Floyd disturbances in 2020.
Since the anti-police protests regarding police use of force issues, there are a lot of pissed-off cops. Those in law enforcement felt that all police officers were being stereotyped as brutal and uncaring because of the actions of a small number of officers, the same foundational prejudice (judging all by the actions of a few) suffered by other groups.
The Defund The Police movement told cops that their sacrifices and efforts were no longer welcome. The pandemic also impacted arrest numbers.
Officers complained that juvenile and drug arrests had few consequences and little accountability, so why bother?
Every arrest carries multiple (and sometimes deadly) risks for the officers involved. I assume that many police officers were no longer willing to take that risk unless the evidence was overwhelming and unquestionable. They would respond to calls for service and conduct routine patrols, but proactive policing was no longer on the table.
The paradox of this discussion is the impact on crime, with many progressives suggesting that the drops in city-reported crime have been huge; thus, more arrests (or proactive policing strategies) are not necessary for crime control.
The USDOJ’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention literally celebrated, via press releases, the significant decrease in juvenile arrests under the Biden administration. At the same time, cities complained about increases in juvenile violence. The USDOJ framed this as a positive justice outcome.
Then there is the controversy as to which set of USDOJ crime statistics to believe.
There are two USDOJ measures of crime in the United States. One is based on crimes reported to law enforcement, as articulated by the FBI, and that’s what people are basing the urban reduction in violent crime on. Yes, homicides are obviously the most reported and reliable crime statistic.
Beyond multiple cities accused of providing downgraded crime data (i.e., D.C., Memphis, Oakland, others), no one disputes the drop in homicides or the overall violence reduction in cities based on crimes reported to the police.
The problem? It would take several additional pages of explanations as to the endless difficulties surrounding the use of reported crimes, so I’ll stick with the most obvious: the vast majority of what we call crime is not reported to the police.
Seventy percent of what we call crime are property events and, per the Bureau of Justice Statistics, only 30 percent of those are reported to the police. Close to half of violent crimes are reported.
Per the USDOJ’s Bureau of Justice Statistics recent report, 38 percent of urban violent crimes are reported. Based on unreported crimes, it’s possible (but probably unlikely) for the 3-4 percent decrease (2023-2024) per the FBI in national violent crime to actually be an increase.
But per the USDOJ’s Bureau of Justice Statistics National Crime Victimization Survey (what the US Census calls the premier method of counting crimes in America), we had a large increase in rates of violent crime in 2022 (44 percent), and rates have remained almost unchanged for 2023 and the latest-most recent report for 2024. Violent victimization settled at a much higher level than expected, and stayed there.
The National Crime Victimization Survey states that urban violence increased in its latest 2024 report. Independent analysts say that reported violent and property crimes are falling considerably in cities.
One source claims the increase in rates of violent crime is 80 percent, based on the National Crime Victimization Survey. That finding, however, includes a baseline of 2020 when the pandemic raged, and surveys and counts of crime were impacted.
So it’s plausible, based on the totality of crime as measured by the National Crime Victimization Survey, that there have been historic increases in violent crime during recent years. The NCVS does not count homicides (you can’t interview dead people), and it excludes business crimes, those under the age of 12, and other categories.
We should also note that per Gallup, the overwhelming majority of those polled indicate a fear or concern about crime, with half expressing serious concerns.
Thus, for those claiming that more arrests and more cops are not necessary for crime control, USDOJ data based on the National Crime Victimization Survey refutes that assertion. An increased number of crime victims and fear devastates communities.
Counting crime has always been a confusing mess, and the impact of losing tens of thousands of police personnel makes any assessment of crime control muddier.
But with proactive policing, one of the few modalities offering convincing evidence (based on a National Academy of Sciences report) that it reduces crime, sufficient numbers of officers making quality arrests seems to be a necessary component of improving public safety.
