Austin homicides fell sharply in five years — experts don’t think it is a coincidence

Austin’s homicide rate has fallen sharply from its pandemic-era peak, marking a notable shift after years of elevated violence.

The Austin Police Department recorded 55 homicides in 2025, a 25% drop from the year before and about 60% fewer killings than was reported in 2021, when there were a record 90 murders. The local decline mirrors a broader national trend. An analysis from the Real-Time Crime Index found murders nationwide fell by about one-fifth year over year, based on data from the first 10 months of 2024 and 2025.

Community advocates, prosecutors and law enforcement say the downturn reflects a combination of post-pandemic stabilization and expanded investments in programs aimed at preventing violence before it occurs. After a surge in killings that followed the pandemic shutdowns, Austin’s falling homicide numbers have renewed debate over what drives violent crime and what reduces it. From community-based intervention programs to changes in prosecution strategies and increased public investment, city leaders and advocates point to a range of efforts they believe are contributing to making Austin less violent, even as they caution that continued progress is not guaranteed.

“People had too much downtime [during the pandemic] and not enough access to resources,” said Anthony Smith, the executive director of Cities United, a nonprofit focused on reducing homicide rates of Black and brown men. “When we opened back up, it took us a while as a field to get back into the groove and back into the work.”

Cities United helps bolster local efforts aimed at reducing gun violence in high-risk communities and works directly with Austin advocates fronting those initiatives. Smith sees a direct correlation between lower homicide rates and investment in community violence interventions.

“Community violence intervention [is] where you have credible messengers, trusted messengers…who are from a community, who can go into those communities and do the intervention work,” Smith said. “It’s bigger than just keeping people alive. You also have to create a space for them to thrive, which means we have to create new pathways for them to get to education and into employment.”

Some organizations doing that kind of work in Austin are Life Anew Restorative Justice and Jail to Jobs, Smith said. He also credited the Travis County District Attorney’s Office for investing in these programs.

“In 2021, it became clear to me that [gun violence] was going to be the central challenge of our first term,” Travis County District Attorney Jose Garza told Austin Current. In 2021, about 84% of homicides involved guns, according to the Austin American-Statesman.

When he took office, Garza laid out a plan to holistically address gun violence in the county. Community violence interventions were a part of it, but “gun violence is not monolithic,” Garza said.

“Domestic violence, random acts of gun violence, gun violence related to street crime, like drug dealing… are all very different challenges that require different solutions,” Garza continued.

Garza’s office has followed a four-pronged strategy to combat the various types of gun violence:

• Using traditional and innovative prosecution strategies for sentencing people charged with gun crimes.
• Working with community members to prevent gun violence by creating, supporting, and implementing intervention and prevention programs.
• Taking guns out of the hands of those at high risk for committing an act of gun violence, especially in intimate partner relationships involving violence.
• Supporting programs to help survivors and families of the victims of gun violence.

“We’ve worked to build an entire ecosystem that can address each of these unique challenges that can lead to gun violence and build solutions that are tailored to those particular challenges,” Garza said.

Garza said he does see a link between these investments and the decline in killings. He pointed to Travis County programs targeting gun violence in domestic partnerships as being particularly effective.

“We won’t be satisfied until we can drive those numbers down as low as possible. But I am really optimistic about our progress,” Garza added.

Austin Police Homicide Sergeant Nathan Sexton theorized Austin homicides spiked in 2021 due to political unrest and general pandemic restlessness.. He said he and his colleagues struggled to manage the work associated with the violent surge.

“[2021] was double what our norm had been just a couple of years prior,” Sexton said. “That was causing people to leave the unit in droves.”.

Now that the homicide rate in Austin is coming closer to pre-pandemic levels – the FBI reported 33 murder victims in 2019 – it allows Sexton’s unit to look back at some of Austin’s unresolved homicide cases. Three of the 55 murders from 2025 remain unsolved, Sexton said.

Experts say in recent years, federal, state and local leaders have demonstrated their support for community violence intervention programs with a bump in funding for the organizations on the ground. Gov. Greg Abbott allocated in June 2025 $2 million in state funding for state community violence intervention programs.

“There’s been historic investments in community violence intervention efforts over the past several years, including federal funding that reached Texas communities and Texas-based organizations,” said Nicole Golden, the executive director of Texas Gun Sense.

Golden said with the additional investments, gun homicides in Texas are down 25% from the 2021 peak, with. a multi-year decrease, per the Gun Violence Archive.

Golden said interventions have proven their success, but worries the funding may soon start to slow.

“We can’t let off of the gas,” she said.