Name: U.S. arrests plummet 25% since COVID-19 pandemic, analysis finds
Uploaded: 2025-12-12T00:54:25.913Z
Duration: 2 min 39 s
Description: The number of people arrested yearly in the U.S. has dropped since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to analysis from the Council on Criminal Justice.

The number of people arrested yearly in the U.S. has dropped since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to analysis from the Council on Criminal Justice.

Washington

A recent analysis by the Council on Criminal Justice reveals that annual arrests in the United States have declined by 25% since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, dropping from about 10 million in 2019 to 7.5 million in 2024. This reduction is largely attributed to changes in policing practices, particularly regarding low-level drug offenses, and the expansion of mental health and substance abuse programs as alternatives to arrest.

The data also indicate a shift in the gender composition of arrests, with women and girls now representing a larger share of both juvenile and adult arrests. In 2024, girls accounted for over 30% of juvenile arrests and women made up 27% of adult arrests, a change linked to a sharper decline in male arrests compared to female arrests.

U.S. arrests plummet 25% since COVID-19 pandemic, analysis finds

The amount of people being arrested yearly in the U.S. has dropped since the COVID-19 pandemic according to new analysis. Figures from the Council on Criminal Justice show about 10 million people were arrested in 2019 before the pandemic started. In 2024, that number dropped to about seven and a half million people. Anna Schechter joins us now. She's a senior coordinating producer of the CBS News Crime and Public Safety Unit. So Anna, any explanation why we see this decline? Well, this is so interesting and it actually set me back. How is it that there's a 25% drop from 2019 to 2020 and it never comes back up? What is going on? So digging into it, the norms around low-level drug crimes, that's really what we're talking about here. Police are not making those arrests that they used to. Also, there are a lot more programs for mental health, substance abuse issues that take the place of those arrests, but it really is significant, especially there's so much rhetoric around crime, a lot coming out of the White House, but the arrests are way down. Is that, when you say this is low-level drug crimes, is this welcome news to advocates who have been for a long time petitioning to stop putting people behind bars for these offenses? It is, and it shows that their advocacy work has actually worked. It's also just a cultural shift. There are cultural norms and things start happening on the street and then sentencing laws, state by state, start to catch up. So the sentencing guidelines for these low-level crimes, they've been reduced significantly in multiple states, and so police are thinking, well, why are we even gonna do this? We gotta focus on more serious crime, and they've also been criticized for going after marijuana, right? There was a lot of pushback against police for that, and we really have seen a real shift, a measurable shift, and I think a lot of people would be surprised when they look at these graphs and they see this drop. And the data also shows the share of female arrests has gone up, and girls accounted for more than 30% of juvenile arrests. Women made up 27% of adult arrests in 2024. What's happening there? Well, that is a larger piece of the pie. So because male arrest numbers are down so much, and female arrest numbers aren't down as much, a bigger percentage of people getting arrested now are girls, 31%, and women, 27% compared to men. 31% compared to boys, so about three in 10 juveniles are girls, so we kind of have this system designed for boys and men, and then you just have more women in it. I think it remains to be seen how things change, so I'm really looking at that, and I wanna be watching that. Okay, interesting, thank you so much.

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