Overview-2024
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The lists below provide an overview of the most dangerous cities and metropolitan areas, states, and counties from the US Department of Justice and commercial/news sources.
A few articles overlap and are placed in multiple categories.
This page offers four sections:
1 Crime rankings from news and commercial sources regarding cities-states-zip codes and foreign countries.
2 Commentary on reported and unreported crimes
3 Data from the US Department of Justice as to rates of violent crime per cities
4 US Department of Justice data on homicides, counties, and metro areas
NOTICE-NOTICE-NOTICE: Data From The FBI Is Incomplete
Some of the data below comes from the FBI offering crimes reported to law enforcement. All data from the FBI is challenged by the fact that some law enforcement agencies did not provide a full year’s worth of data because of a switch to the new National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). See Violent And Property Crimes In The US for a better explanation.
The NIBRS is a new method of collecting and analyzing crime data. Many police departments are in the process of switching to the new format. Still, it may take several years for the remaining law enforcement agencies to “fully” comply with NIBRS reporting requirements.
Keep in mind that the vast majority of violent and property crimes are not reported to law enforcement per the Bureau of Justice Statistics of the US Department of Justice. 45 percent of violent crimes are reported to law enforcement. It’s 30 percent for property crimes.
There are additional issues with crimes reported to law enforcement. Multiple media articles suggest that citizens are not reporting crimes due to the time it takes for a police officer to arrive due to inadequate staffing levels. There are other considerations as to why citizens do not report crimes.
Author
Leonard A. Sipes, Jr. Retired senior federal spokesperson. Thirty-five years of award-winning public relations for national and state criminal justice agencies. Interviewed multiple times by every national news outlet.
Former Senior Specialist for Crime Prevention for the Department of Justice’s clearinghouse. Former Director of Information Services, National Crime Prevention Council. Former Adjunct Associate Professor of Criminology and public affairs-University of Maryland, University College.
Former advisor to presidential and gubernatorial campaigns. Former advisor to the “McGruff-Take a Bite Out of Crime” national media campaign. Certificate of Advanced Study-Johns Hopkins University. Former police officer. Aspiring drummer.
Author of ”Success With The Media: Everything You Need To Survive Reporters and Your Organization” available at Amazon and additional booksellers.
Crime Rates Can Be Higher In Small Cities-Suburbs-Rural Areas When Compared To Big Cities
Using Department of Justice-funded and commercial data, a report states that unexpected locations can have high rates of crime and violence. If you are considering moving to a new area, a conversation with local police would be advisable.
Crime Rankings for Cities and States From News And Commercial Sources
The following are from commercial publications and news organizations. We include links for recent years. Please do not depend on any one source; some measure factors beyond crime. Note that smaller cities can have large gains in crime rates.
Major Cities Police Chiefs Association. Go to the site and scroll down to see the cities measured and see the crime increases and decreases for that city. Includes Canadian cities.
MoneyGeek-Safest and Most Dangerous Cities
Yahoo News-25 Most Dangerous Cities
Forbes and MoneyGeek-15 Most Dangerous And Safest Cities
Major Cities Chiefs Association review of the first six months of 2022 by jurisdiction
Most Dangerous-Safest Cities-WalletHub
Cities And Homicides-Time Magazine-2021
Cities Where Murders Are Up The Most-247 WallSt
Safest And Most Dangerous Cities in America-Insurance Industry
Cities With The Highest Rate of Homicides-Fox
Twenty Most Dangerous Cities-Money Magazine
Ten Most Dangerous Cities-Forbes
Top Cities for Homicides-CBS News
Cities Where Assaults Are Increasing-247 Wall Street
Most Dangerous Cities-247wallst.com/
Most Dangerous Cities By State-247wallst.com/
100 Most Dangerous Cities-Best Life
USA Today-Most Dangerous Cities
Neighborhood Scout-100 Dangerous Cities
Realtor.Com-Safe Or Dangerous Areas
Safest Cities In America
Forbes: The Safest Cities In The U.S., Ranked In A New Report
Safest Cities-Cost of Crime-Money Geek
There Are Resources Comparing States
Forbes: The Safest Cities In The U.S., Ranked In A New Report
States Having The Highest Rates of Violent And Property Crimes
Centers For Disease Control State Homicide Data For 2020
247 Wall St-Most Dangerous States
Crime Searchable By Zip Code
CNN-How Healthy Is Your Neighborhood?
Top Cities For Property Crime
Cities With The Most Property Crime
Cities Making The Most Arrests
Buying or Renting a House
Many come to this site for assistance in choosing a safe place to live. We caution readers to personally investigate the immediate and surrounding neighborhoods as an important first step. Talk to local police, what seems safe may be troublesome. Ask for the crime prevention section or the community relations officer.
States With The Most Mass Shootings
States With The Most Police Officers
Most Dangerous States To Be A Police Officer
States With The Most Gun Purchases
Canada
“Violent crime in Canada is now at levels unseen since 2007” is a statement documenting an increasing concern about Canadian crime.
According to Statistics Canada’s Crime Severity Index, which measures police-reported crime, violent crime is soaring. The total number of violent incidents reported in 2022 was 39 percent higher than in 2015. These gains have largely reversed reductions achieved throughout the late 2000s and early 2010s — violent crime is now at levels unseen since 2007.
MaCleans Most Dangerous Canadian Cities
There are Resources Comparing Cities-Countries Throughout the World (including US Cities)
Gallup-The US And Canada Feel Less Safe Because of Crime-A World Review
20 Most Dangerous Cities in The World
A Comparison of US Crime To Other Countries
Gallup-The US And Canada Feel Less Safe Because of Crime-A World Review
Background–the Difficulty of Comparing Jurisdictions–Reported and Unreported Crime and Crime Rates
Note: Annual reports for the FBI and Bureau of Justice Statistics (discussed below) are available through search; the addresses change from year to year. Search for crime statistics for the FBI and “Criminal Victimization” for the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Crime statistics are confusing and frequently misunderstood. There are criminologists who spend their professional lives investigating the complexity of crime data.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) collects crimes reported to law enforcement agencies through state collection agencies and releases statistics for the nation, states, and metropolitan areas. The FBI is now offering quarterly and monthly reports.
The National Crime Survey from the Bureau of Justice Statistics releases crime survey data for the country based on reported and unreported crime and do not offer crime statistics for states, metro areas or cities “until” the introduction of the reports below.
Most crime is not reported to the police (thus the need for the National Crime Survey to get a picture of total crime) so there is a lot of room for error. Only 45 percent of violent crimes are reported. It’s much less for property crimes. Law enforcement agencies can affect the amount of crime reported through interactions with citizens.
The FBI and state crime data collection agencies try to enforce common definitions on what constitutes a crime, but individual officers can (and do) downgrade crimes where definitions are vague. For example, an overaggressive person (or people) asking for money could be guilty of panhandling or robbery; it depends on how you interpret the aggressiveness of the person “asking” for money.
Some cities have been known to downgrade crimes. The past is filled with documented examples. Some cities do poor jobs of collecting and analyzing crime data.
Most crime rankings are based on crimes per 1,000 residents which immediately creates an unfair playing field if you get thousands of tourists or workers per day. Those thousands of “outsiders” will inevitably commit crimes or inadvertently create opportunities for crime that would not exist in cities or states not getting a lot of tourists or daily workers.
So the bottom line is that crimes (and crimes reported) can and will differ for reasons having little or nothing to do with the quality of policing or crime control strategies.
So if you choose to look at rankings, please do so with an open mind. A city or state may have crime problems, but hundreds of thousands or millions of its citizens, tourists and workers move throughout their city in relative safety on a daily basis.
Use Of US Department Of Justice-Bureau Of Justice Statistics Rankings-Five Articles From Crime In America
The use of local crime comparisons by the federal government beyond the yearly data offered by the FBI is unusual. That’s why they are offered below. Yes, the data is old, but it seems obvious that the Bureau of Justice Statistics “may” join the FBI in reporting local crime data.
For the latest state data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, see States Having The Highest Rates Of Violent And Property Crimes.
Five articles using rates of violence from the US Department of Justice were offered on this site. They include:
One year changes in the rate of violent crime, Most Violent Cities-2018 (chart below), the percentage of change in violent crime from 2014 to 2018 (chart below), Most Violent Cities-2014-2018, an overview of city homicide rates, Most Dangerous Cities-Homicides , the Most Dangerous Cities-Robbery, and The Most Dangerous Cities-Rape.
Each article provides an overview of the data and the issues surrounding the use of crimes reported to law enforcement. Most crimes (including violent crimes) are not reported, thus the need for a national survey of crime victims administered by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (the same people offering the charts below and data for the articles above).
Please note that every table contains footnotes. Please refer to the full report for additional cities and topics at the Bureau Of Justice Statistics.
Chart One-Percentage Increases In Violent Crime for Thirty Cities, 2014-2018, Highest Percentage Increase
Chart Two-Rates Of Violent Crime for Thirty Cities-2018-Highest Crime Rates
US Department of Justice Data Report for 2015
The reports below were offered by two agencies within the US Department of Justice and were released in 2015. They are included here because they provided jurisdiction-specific crime data which was unusual until the Bureau of Justice Statistics released their report ranking cities (discussed above) in 2020, see Bureau Of Justice Statistics.
The following data is from The National Institute of Justice, US Department of Justice.
The Cities With the Largest Total Increase in Homicides-Study of 56 Cities
Please note that the US Department of Justice funded data below did not measure all cities in the US; only 56 cities were chosen for the study. See the link at the bottom for access to the study.
Of the cities studied, those with the highest total increase for homicides in 2015 include:
Baltimore-127%
Milwaukee-61%
Houston-61%
Chicago-61%
Washington, D.C.-57%
Cleveland-57%
Nashville-34%
Kansas City-29%
St Louis-29%
Philadelphia-32%
Source: National Institute of Justice
The Cities With the Largest Percentage Increase in Homicides-Study of 56 Cities
Please note that the US Department of Justice funded data below does not measure all cities in the US; only 56 cities were chosen for the study. See the link at the bottom of the two articles for access to the study.
Of the cities studied, those with the highest percentage increase for 2015 for homicides include:
Cleveland-90%
Nashville-83%
Milwaukee-73%
Baltimore-58%
Washington, D.C.-54%
Kansas City-37%
Houston-25%
St Louis-18%
Chicago-15%
Philadelphia-13%
Source: National Institute of Justice
Data On Rates of Violence for Metro Areas and Counties
There is data released by the Bureau of Justice Statistics of the US Department of Justice that provides data (not rankings) on violent crime rates for counties and metro areas. Why is this important? Previously, rankings principally depended on crimes reported to law enforcement. This is a problem considering that the majority of crimes are not reported.
The data below depend on crime surveys to discover the totality of criminal activity. Because surveys record much higher numbers, they tend to be more accurate. Rankings are ours. Use the same caution expressed above.
Top Ten Violent Crime Metro Areas in the United States
Based on Department of Justice Victimization Data
Violent Crime Rates-2010-2012. Published in December, 2015
- Sacramento-Arden-Arcade-Roseville, CA—42.8
- Denver-Aurora-Bloomfield County, CO—40.2
- Pittsburg, PA—37.5
- Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA—36.2
- Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR—34.9
- Kansas City, MO/KS—33.9
- Louis, MO/IL—33.5
- Baltimore-Towson, MD—30.8
- Oklahoma City, OK—30.7
- Providence-New Bedford-Fall River, RI/MA—30.2
Top Ten Violent Crime Counties in the United States
Based on Department of Justice Victimization Data
Violent Crime Rates-2010-2012. Published in December, 2015
- Sacramento County, CA—44.1
- Allegany County, PA—42.4
- Philadelphia County, PA—41.4
- Honolulu County, HI—39.4
- Pima County, AZ—36.1
- Dallas County, TX–35.9
- Riverside County, CA—34.4
- Alameda County, CA—33.5
- Marion County, IN—30.6
- Salt Lake County, UT—29.7 and Milwaukee County, WI—29.7
Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics
See More
US Crime Rates at Nationwide Crime Rates.
National Offender Recidivism Rates at Offender Recidivism.
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My book based on thirty-five years of criminal justice public relations,” Success With The Media: Everything You Need To Survive Reporters and Your Organization” available at Amazon and additional booksellers.
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