Crime in Canada is generally considered low overall. Under the Canadian constitution, the power to establish criminal law & rules of investigation is vested in the federal Parliament. The provinces share responsibility for law enforcement, and while the power to prosecute criminal offences is assigned to the federal government, responsibility for prosecutions is delegated to the provinces for most types of criminal offences. Laws and sentencing guidelines are uniform throughout the country, but provinces vary in their level of enforcement.
Crime in Washington, D.C., is directly related to the city's demographics, geography, and unique criminal justice system. The District's population reached a peak of 802,178 in 1950. Shortly after that, the city began losing residents, and by 1980 Washington had lost one-quarter of its population. The population loss to the suburbs also created a new demographic pattern, which divided affluent neighborhoods west of Rock Creek Park from the less well-off neighborhoods to the east.
Morgan Quitno Press is a research and publishing company founded in 1989 and based in Lawrence, Kansas. The company compiled annual reference books of US state and city statistics. Its primary volumes included State Rankings, Health Care State Rankings, Education State Rankings, Crime State Rankings, City Crime Rankings, and State Trends. In 2007, Morgan Quitno Press was acquired by CQ Press, a division of Congressional Quarterly Inc. CQ Press later was acquired by Sage Publications which incorporated the Morgan Quitno statistics into its Sage Stats database.
Crime in St. Louis includes an overview of crime both in the city of St. Louis and in the Greater St. Louis metropolitan area. Crime in the city increased from the 1960s through the early 1990s as measured by the index crime rate. Despite decreasing crime, rates of violent crime and property crime in both the city and the metropolitan area remain higher than the national metropolitan area average. In addition, the city of St. Louis consistently has been ranked among the most dangerous cities in the United States. As of April 2017, St. Louis has the highest murder rate in America. At the end of 2017, St. Louis metropolitan had 205 murders, 159 of which were within the city limits. In 2018, the new Chief of Police, John Hayden said two-thirds (67%) of all the murders and one-half of all the assaults are concentrated in a triangular area in the north part of the city.
The municipal government of Winnipeg is represented by 15 city councillors and a mayor elected every four years.
Crime has been recorded in the United States since its founding and has fluctuated significantly over time. Most available data underestimate crime before the 1930s, giving the false impression that crime was low in the early 1900s and had a sharp rise after. Instead, violent crime during the colonial period was likely three times higher than the highest modern rates in the data we have, and crime had been on the decline since colonial times. Within the better data for crime reporting and recording available starting in the 1930s, crime reached its broad, bulging modern peak between the 1970s and early 1990s. After 1992, crime rates have generally trended downwards each year, with the exceptions of a slight increase in property crimes in 2001 and increases in violent crimes in 2005–2006, 2014–2016 and 2020–2021. As of July 1, 2024 violent crime was down and homicides were on pace to drop to 2015 levels by the end of the year.
As of 2018, Detroit had the fourth highest murder rate among major cities in the United States after St. Louis and Baltimore and the 42nd highest murder rate in the world. The rate of robberies in Detroit declined by 67% between 1985 and 2014 while the rate of aggravated assaults increased. As a whole, the city's crime rate has decreased considerably from its 1980s peak.
Crime in Chicago has been tracked by the Chicago Police Department's Bureau of Records since the beginning of the 20th century.
Crime and violence affect the lives of millions of people in Latin America. Some consider social inequality to be a major contributing factor to levels of violence in Latin America, where the state fails to prevent crime and organized crime takes over State control in areas where the State is unable to assist the society such as in impoverished communities. In the years following the transitions from authoritarianism to democracy, crime and violence have become major problems in Latin America. The region experienced more than 2.5 million murders between 2000 and 2017. Several studies indicated the existence of an epidemic in the region; the Pan American Health Organization called violence in Latin America "the social pandemic of the 20th century." Apart from the direct human cost, the rise in crime and violence has imposed significant social costs and has made much more difficult the processes of economic and social development, democratic consolidation and regional integration in the Americas.
Crime in Atlanta, Georgia is above the national median and has been a major problem for the city since the middle 20th century.
Crime rates in Alabama overall have declined by 17% since 2005. Trends in crime within Alabama have largely been driven by a reduction in property crime by 25%. There has been a small increase in the number of violent crimes since 2005, which has seen an increase of 9% In 2020, there were 511 violent crime offenses per 100,000 population. Alabama was ranked 44th in violent crime out of a total 50 states in the United States.
According to the Louisiana Uniform Crime reporting program, there were 177,710 crimes reported in the U.S. state of Louisiana in 2018. 2018 had the least amount of non-violent criminal offenses since at least 2008. Violent crime decreased from 2017 to 2018, but 2012 still remains the lowest with its record of 22,868. Rape went up 12.7% from 2017 while murder/non-negligent manslaughter declined 7.8%. Additionally, robbery dropped 15% and aggravated assault dropped 1.5%. Handguns remain the leading murder weapon with a rate of 44.7% with firearm following close behind at 35.7%. Together, these two contribute for 80.4% of the murders. Similarly, robberies were committed mostly with firearms in 2018. Firearms were leading with 52% and strongarm listed with a percentage of 35%.
In 2019, 43,686 crimes were reported in the U.S. state of Michigan. Crime statistics vary widely by location. For example, Dearborn has a murder rate of only 2.1 per 100,000 while sharing borders with Detroit and Inkster, some of the highest rates in the state.
Crime in Minnesota encompasses a wide range of unlawful activities that occur within the state, regulated by both state and federal laws. While crime rates in Minnesota are generally below the national average, certain areas and types of crime have garnered public attention.
In 2010, 356 people were murdered in the U.S. state of Tennessee. In 2009 and 2010, Tennessee had the highest rate of violent gun crime of any US state, although less than that of Washington D.C. Tennessee ranked highest in the nation for the rate of aggravated assaults with a firearm, and ranked fifth-worst in robberies.
Crime in Oakland, California began to rise during the late 1960s after the King assassination riots, and by the end of the 1970s Oakland's per capita murder rate had risen to twice that of San Francisco or New York City. In 1983, the National Journal referred to Oakland as the "1983 crime capital" of the San Francisco Bay Area. Crime continued to escalate during the 1980s and 1990s, and during the first decade of the 21st century Oakland has consistently been listed as one of the most dangerous large cities in the United States.
The American city of Baltimore, Maryland, is notorious for its crime rate, which ranks well above the national average. Violent crime spiked in 2015 after the death of Freddie Gray on April 19, 2015, which touched off riots and an increase in murders. The city recorded 348 homicides in 2019, a number second only to the number recorded in 1993 when the population was nearly 125,000 higher.
Memphis, Tennessee serves as the Southern headquarters for Tennessee based street organizations in the Southern United States. In 2021, there were approximately 102 gangs with 13,400 gang members in the city.
Crime in Saint Kitts and Nevis is considerably higher than many other parts of the world. In 2012 Saint Kitts and Nevis had a homicide rate of 33.6 per 100,000 citizens, the 8th highest in the world, and the 7th highest during the period from 2005 to 2014. As of 2011 Basseterre had the highest murder rate of any capital city in the world at 131.6 per 100,000 inhabitants.
Houston's murder rate in 2005 ranked 46th of U.S. cities with a population over 250,000 in 2005. In 2010, the city's murder rate was ranked sixth among U.S. cities with a population of over 750,000 according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Houston had over 400 homicides in 2020 and 473 by the end of December 2021 a predicted increase of 30% year on year.
