United States cities by crime rate (40,000–60,000)

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The following table is based on Federal Bureau of Investigation Uniform Crime Reports statistics. [1]

Contents

The population numbers are based on U.S. Census estimates for the year end. The number of murders includes nonnegligent manslaughter. This list is based on the reporting agency. In most cases the city and the reporting agency are identical. However, in some cases such as Charlotte, Honolulu and Las Vegas, the reporting agency as more than one city.

Murder is the only statistic that all agencies are required to report. Consequently, some agencies particularly in Illinois do not report all the crimes. If components are missing the total is adjusted to "0."

Note about population

Data is voluntarily submitted by each jurisdiction and some jurisdictions do not appear in the table because they either did not submit data or it did not meet deadlines.

According to the FBI website has this disclaimer on population estimates:

For the 2007 population estimates used in this table, the FBI computed individual rates of growth from one year to the next for every city/town and county using 2000 decennial population counts and 2001 through 2006 population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. Each agency's rates of growth were averaged; that average was then applied and added to its 2006 Census population estimate to derive the agency's 2007 population estimate [2]

2010 Calendar Year Ratios of Crime Per 100,000 Population

Criticism of ranking crime data

The FBI web site recommends against using its data for ranking because these rankings lead to simplistic and/or incomplete analyses that often create misleading perceptions adversely affecting cities and counties, along with their residents. [3] The FBI web site also recommends against using its data to judge how effective law enforcement agencies are, since there are many factors that influence crime rates other than law enforcement. [4]

In November 2007, the executive board of the American Society of Criminology (ASC) went further than the FBI itself, and approved a resolution opposing not only the use of the ratings to judge police departments, but also opposing any development of city crime rankings from FBI Uniform Crime Reports (UCRs) at all. The resolution opposed these rankings on the grounds that they "fail to account for the many conditions affecting crime rates" and "divert attention from the individual and community characteristics that elevate crime in all cities", though it did not provide sources or further elaborate on these claims. The resolution states the rankings "represent an irresponsible misuse of the data and do groundless harm to many communities" and "work against a key goal of our society, which is a better understanding of crime-related issues by both scientists and the public". [5]

The U.S. Conference of Mayors passed a similar statement, which also committed the Conference to working with the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice "to educate reporters, elected officials, and citizens on what the (UCR) data means and doesn't mean." [5]

Criticism of comparing crime rates

Crime rates per capita might also be biased by population size depending on the crime type. [6] This misrepresentation occurs because rates per capita assume that crime increases at the same pace as the number of people in an area. [7] When this linear assumption does not hold, rates per capita still have population effects. In these nonlinear cases, per capita rates can inflate or deflate the representation of crime in cities, introducing an artifactual bias into rankings. Therefore, it is necessary to test for linearity before comparing crime rates of cities of different sizes. [6]

Other cities rates

Related Research Articles

The Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program compiles official data on crime in the United States, published by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). UCR is "a nationwide, cooperative statistical effort of nearly 18,000 city, university and college, county, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement agencies voluntarily reporting data on crimes brought to their attention".

A violent crime, violent felony, crime of violence or crime of a violent nature is a crime in which an offender or perpetrator uses or threatens to use harmful force upon a victim. This entails both crimes in which the violent act is the objective, such as murder, assault, rape and assassination, as well as crimes in which violence is used as a method of coercion or show of force, such as robbery, extortion and terrorism. Violent crimes may, or may not, be committed with weapons. Depending on the jurisdiction, violent crimes may be regarded with varying severities from homicide to harassment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crime in Canada</span>

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.

In the United States, the relationship between race and crime has been a topic of public controversy and scholarly debate for more than a century. Crime rates vary significantly between racial groups; however, academic research indicates that the over-representation of some racial minorities in the criminal justice system can in part be explained by socioeconomic factors, such as poverty, exposure to poor neighborhoods, poor access to public and early education, and exposure to harmful chemicals and pollution. Racial housing segregation has also been linked to racial disparities in crime rates, as black Americans have historically and to the present been prevented from moving into prosperous low-crime areas through actions of the government and private actors. Various explanations within criminology have been proposed for racial disparities in crime rates, including conflict theory, strain theory, general strain theory, social disorganization theory, macrostructural opportunity theory, social control theory, and subcultural theory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Incident-Based Reporting System</span> System used by law enforcement agencies in the United States

National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) is an incident-based reporting system used by law enforcement agencies in the United States for collecting and reporting data on crimes. Local, state and federal agencies generate NIBRS data from their records management systems. Data is collected on every incident and arrest in the Group A offense category. These Group A offenses are 52 offenses grouped in 23 crime categories. Specific facts about these offenses are gathered and reported to NIBRS. In addition to the Group A offenses, 10 Group B offenses are reported with only the arrest information.

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.

Michael D. Maltz is an American electrical engineer, criminologist and Emeritus Professor at University of Illinois at Chicago in criminal justice, and adjunct professor and researcher at Ohio State University.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crime in the United States</span>

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.

The following table is based on Federal Bureau of Investigation Uniform Crime Reports statistics.

The following table is based on Federal Bureau of Investigation Uniform Crime Reports statistics.

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.

America's Safest and Most Dangerous Cities is a publication issued annually by CQ Press, a division of Congressional Quarterly Inc., that ranks American cities on the basis of safety and crime. According to the publisher, the rankings are based upon statistics submitted by cities to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) which are then published by the FBI online, as part of the Bureau's Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program. Recently, the ranking has been criticized by several organizations, including The American Society of Criminology (ASC), Criminal Justice Journalists, and The United States Conference of Mayors as well as the FBI.

In 2015 there were 166,510 crimes reported in the U.S. state of Maryland, including 493 murders.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Defensive gun use</span> Use or presentation of a firearm for self-defense, defense of others or protecting property

Defensive gun use (DGU) is the use or presentation of a firearm for self-defense, defense of others or, in some cases, protecting property. The frequency of incidents involving DGU and their effectiveness in providing safety and reducing crime are controversial issues in gun politics and criminology, chiefly in the United States. Different authors and studies employ different criteria for what constitutes a defensive gun use which leads to controversy in comparing statistical results. Perceptions of defensive gun use are recurring themes in discussions over gun rights, gun control, armed police, open and concealed carry of firearms.

In the United States, use of deadly force by police has been a high-profile and contentious issue. In 2022, 1,096 people were killed by police shootings according to The Washington Post, while according to the "Mapping Police Violence" (MPV) project, 1,176 people were killed by police in total. MPV documented 1,213 killings by police for 2023.

References

  1. ↑ "Crime in the United States by Metropolitan Statistical Area, 2010 (Table 6)". FBI . Retrieved 20 September 2011.
  2. ↑ "Table 08, Data Declaration - Crime in the United States 2007". www.fbi.gov. Archived from the original on 2008-09-16.
  3. ↑ "Caution Against Ranking". FBI . Retrieved August 8, 2012.
  4. ↑ "A Word About UCR Data". FBI . Retrieved 12 October 2010.
  5. 1 2 Criminologists Condemn City crime rankings (November 16, 2008).PRNewswire. Retrieved on January 13, 2008.
  6. 1 2 Oliveira, M. (2021). "More crime in cities? On the scaling laws of crime and the inadequacy of per capita rankings—a cross-country study". Crime Science. 10: 27. arXiv: 2012.15368 . doi: 10.1186/s40163-021-00155-8 .
  7. ↑ Boivin, R. (2013). "On the use of crime rates". Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice. 55 (2): 263–277. doi:10.3138/cjccj.2012-E-06.
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