Three of Connecticut’s biggest cities have reported seeing a drop in most crime in 2025 — a trend officials have attributed to intervention programs and the use of technology in policing to quickly solve crimes.
According to the Hartford Police Department CompStat report, murders in the city for most of 2025 have dropped by 50%. As of Dec. 20, 11 murders were reported, compared to 22 killings during the same time period in 2024, the report shows. The number of shooting victims went up slightly in the same time period from 76 victims in 2024 to 77 this year.
Aggravated assaults involving a firearm fell significantly from 103 reported instances in 2024 to 76 this year, representing a 26% drop, the report said. Aggravated assaults that did not involve a firearm have remained the same from 2024 to this year, with 280 reported instances each year.
The number of rapes reported in the city fell by 18% with 45 reports this year compared to 55 incidents through the first three weeks of December in 2024.
Robberies have also been down in 2025. Those involving a firearm fell from 70 reports in 2024 to 67 so far this year, a 4% drop. Robberies that did not involve a firearm dropped even more from 134 reports to 115, marking a 14% decrease, according to the report.
Property crime was down across the board, the report shows. Auto theft plunged from 1,097 thefts in 2024 compared to 756 reported instances this year, a 31% dip. Burglaries dropped by 13% with 332 break-ins in 2024 compared to 288 so far in 2025.
Overall larcenies dipped from 2,505 reported instances in 2024 to 1,907, marking a 24% drop, according to the report.
“What we have been doing in the city of Hartford is working,” Hartford Mayor Arunan Arulampalam said. “The combination of really smart policing, targeted and focused policing, with community violence intervention coordinated through the Office of Violence Prevention, which we created last year. It shows that you really can make a city safer and drive down the number of violent crimes.”
Arulampalam added that the number of homicides this year are at historic lows.
“Last year, we were already at historic lows in shooting victims. We’re trending to match or beat those this year, and we have 50 fewer homicide victims. The amount of gun violence has dropped drastically in the city of Hartford,” he said.
Arulampalam pointed to the city’s realtime crime center — which he says is one of the most advanced in the country — ShotSpotter and the camera system as the technological ways Hartford has helped drive down crime. Intervention programs that help victims of violent crimes in an effort to curb retaliatory violence have also been very effective, he said. Community groups have also played a huge role.
“There’s an ecosystem that is working together to ensure that after gun violence happens that the perpetrators are caught, that the victims get services they need because we know that the victims of gun violence and their families are statistically the most likely folks to be either the victims or perpetrators of the next crime,” Arulampalam said. “We’re stopping that cycle of violence from spreading out more shootings in the city.”
Hartford Police Department. (Douglas Hook / Hartford Courant)
In New Haven, homicides were up through the first three weeks of December, with 16 killings in 2025 compared to 14 during the same time period last year, representing a 14% increase, the city’s CompStat report shows. Every other crime category in the report has gone down, according to the report.
Shots fired incidents fell drastically from 179 reports in 2024 to 96 this year, marking more than a 46% drop, according to the report. Aggravated assaults with a firearm also plunged from 88 reported instances last year to 42 in 2025, representing about a 52% decrease. Aggravated assaults that did not involve a gun fell from 274 reports in 2024 to 146 this year, a more than 46% drop, the report shows.
Robberies involving a firearm fell from 70 incidents to 38, a decrease of nearly 46%, according to the report. Robberies that did not involve a gun also fell from 157 reports to 115, marking a drop of more than 26%.
The number of rapes reported in the city also fell from 32 instances in 2024 to 23 this year, a 28% change, the report shows.
According to the CompStat report, property crime in New Haven was down across the board in 2025. Burglaries fell by nearly 39% from 464 burglaries in 2024 to 284 instances this year, the report shows. Larcenies from motor vehicles fell from 753 reports last year to 571 in 2025, nearly a 24% drop, the report said. “Other” larcenies also fell from 2,326 reports in 2024 to 1,980, nearly a 15% decrease.
The most recent stat available for motor vehicle thefts, through the first week of December, indicated these types of thefts dropped from 996 incidents in 2024 to 679 reports, nearly a 32% decrease.
New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker said the city takes a similar approach to crime like Hartford with intervention programs to help stop the cycle of violence.
“We’ve lost a number of people this year to gun violence, and it’s a reminder of just how much work we still have ahead of us,” Elicker said.
Overall, violent crime in the city is down about 41% compared to last year. Elicker pointed to the city’s real-time crime center that was developed in the last two years as a very effective tool in driving crime down. He also said the city’s decision to spend millions of dollars to purchase and install new cameras has also been an effective tool, coupled with an expansion on the ShotSpotter system into more neighborhoods.
“All these things are helping us solve crimes faster,” Elicker said. “They’re hugely helpful to nearly instantly pulling up footage of what may have just happened somewhere in the city.”
Both mayors say they worry what kind of an effect cuts made at the federal level will have on their cities.
“That progress here in Hartford and in cities across America has been really cut into by a Trump Administration who’s slashing funding for public safety all across this country,” Arulampalam said.
“I mean, this president is literally defunding the police,” he added.
“What I worry about is that infrastructure that we know is working that we can see in cold, hard stats is working, that that infrastructure is going to get hollowed out,” Arulampalam said. “And if we see crime rise again, I think it’ll be as a direct result of those cuts and that defunding of the public safety infrastructure from the Trump Administration.”
According to Elicker, New Haven is currently protected from having its public safety funding cut due to an injunction tied to the city suing the federal government.
“The Trump Administration has tried to cut off public safety funding coming to our city because of our status as a welcoming city,” Elicker said. “We’re protected for the time being, but in the future that may be a potential problem for us.”
In Bridgeport, city officials released crime data through Dec. 21 that showed a drop in overall violent crime, property crime and shooting incidents compared to the same time period in 2024.
Murders and nonnegligent manslaughters dropped by more than 66% in the time frame, with four reports in 2025 compared to 12 a year earlier. At a news briefing on Tuesday, Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim said the drop represented historic lows that are as low as city officials could find since the data began being tracked.
The number of rapes in Bridgeport fell from 62 reports to 40 in 2025, marking a more than 35% decline. Robberies plunged from 229 reports in the first 51 weeks or so of 2024 to 122 in the same time period this year, a more than 46% drop, the statistics show. Aggravated assaults fell by more than 28% with 261 reports in 2024 compared to 187 this year.
Overall, violent crime fell by about 37%, according to the numbers.
Property crime overall fell by about 24%, the statistics show. Burglaries fell from 333 reports to 235 in 2025, about a 29% decline. Grand larcenies fell by a little more than 11% with 174 reports in 2024 and 154 this year. Motor vehicle thefts dropped from 690 reports in 2024 to 517 incidents this year, a 25% dip.
Gun activity was also down in Bridgeport in 2025, with the total number of shootings falling from 53 to 37, the statistics show. In 2024, 10 people died during shootings through Dec. 21, a number that fell to three in 2025. The number of nonfatal shooting victims also fell in the same time period from 53 to 39.
Moreover, ShotSpotter detected 687 shots fired incidents in 2024, compared to 563 this year, according to the data. The total number of rounds detected also dropped from 2,792 shots to 1,887.
“These numbers are something I don’t take credit for,” Bridgeport Police Department Chief Roderick Porter said at the news briefing.
Porter credited the officers in his department as well as local, state and federal law enforcement partners. He said community programs that have served as partners have also played a vital role.
According to Porter, Ganim gave him the tools and resources to successfully lead the police department, which has grown with more than 100 hires over the past several years.
“We don’t rest on these numbers,” Porter said.
“The ultimate goal is to have our residents feel safe and have a good quality of life,” the chief said.
“The hard work of our officers and investigators and being smart in how we allocate resources contributes to the reduction of crime within the city,” Porter said. “Also, the use of technology — ShotSpotter and the Fusion Center. Community engagement and collaboration efforts with the community helps to increase officer presence which deters many crimes from occurring.”