Public sentiment surrounding the surge in violent crime in major US cities is marked by anger, frustration, and skepticism. Commenters attribute the rise in crime to systemic issues, including poverty and ineffective policies, while expressing criticism towards political leadership, particularly the Democratic party. Sentiment is polarized, with some advocating for increased law enforcement action, while others are skeptical of the political solutions proposed. Despite some expressing concerns about crime statistics, there is a recognition of deeper socio-economic factors influencing crime rates.

Democratic leaders

Law enforcement agencies

Local government officials

newgalactic

What's crazy is that this doesn't even begin to explain how condensed the crime actually is. Gotta be able to see counties for that.

Lowpricestakemyenerg

Interesting that Mississippi is so much lower than all its neighbors.

aguysomewhere

The number of people in the comments that just did not read that this is scaled to population is sad. It's per 100k people, not just a flat value

LordArgonite

You need to break this down by county. Breaking it down on a state level is almost pointless

Feeling-Taro-4944

Looks like there are crime hotspots in states with all kinds of ethnic composition, and states governed by Democrats and Republicans.

sicbo86

This doesn’t account for population density which is a big predictor of crime.

mitch-22-12

But yeah let’s focus on every crime that happens in Chicago

SignificanceFun265

Crime is down across the spectrum. Not just low, but historically low in the modern era. 

[the massive drop in violent crime rates, region by region, city by city in the United States ][Brennan Center for Justice Drastic Reduction in Crime across all sectors ](https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/us-crime-rates-and-trends-analysis-fbi-crime-statistics)

Smooth-Plate8363

platinumperineum

So Breaking Bad never ended in New Mexico?

recroombaby

Some of these states have stopped reporting crime in certain Police Departments as well.  It’s way higher in some of these urban areas that have a moratorium on reporting. 
•  New York Police Department (NYPD)
•  Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD)
•  Chicago Police Department (CPD)
•  Suffolk County Police Department (New York)
•  Nassau County Police Department (New York)
•  Aurora Police Department (Illinois)
•  Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office (Florida)
•  Orlando Police Department (Florida)
•  Fort Lauderdale Police Department (Florida)

Live_Ganache_7749

shieldintern

Plankisalive

Interesting this doesn’t follow the average U.S. map pattern

ucstdthrowaway

sixisrending

Those numbers have changed since 2022. I think Texas is violent. Crime rate is down to about 400

hereforbeer76

Florida needs a recount. That score should be a lot higher.

Seattlantis8

Whats the explanation for Alaska? I saw people blaming the low population making the stats worse.  
But Wyoming has less people and is one of the safest states in the US.

Elyvagar

Mysterious_Dark_2298

Goose_hunter_69

Vex_Appeal

Why is Alaska so high? Don't they have pretty low population density?

True_Butterscotch391

Mississippi is routinely the worst state for violent crime and it is certainly for homicides. This map is clearly wrong.

IThoughtThisWasVoat

A complete was of time. Also, FL is artificially low due to changes in how they report crime.

Recover-Signal

What’s even crazier is how localized the crime in Alaska is.

SchemeShoddy4528

What is crazy how all the states that have stricter gun laws, most of the violence is perpetuated with guns smuggled into the state from loose-gun law states.

A9PolarHornet15

If you want to see, how the rest of the world is doing, [look here](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/violent-crime-rates-by-country).

unfortunately, it is not with numbers for every country there is. But some examination

\- US has 5.76 homicides per 100k citizens. France, for instance has 1.34. --guns?

\- Some countries are reallyyyy offf.... mostly in middle of America. But again, there is little data on Africa and Asia

\- Talking of France, there's a lot of sex violence. (and even more in UK and Sweden..) Anyways, concerning sex violence, I guess the dark figures vary much among the countries.

Vegetable3758

I knew DC had issues but that number is bananas.

ITSOVERGUYS88

NitroXM

Woo Hoo!!!! Louisiana's finally close to the top of a list!!

outside_cat

Good thing they don’t include arson and throwing bricks in these stats.

Due_Intention6795

Data is from 3 years ago

From LinkedIn: Visual Capitalist exists to make the world’s information more accessible. With a mission to make a complex world easier to understand - we combine art, data, and storytelling to keep millions of people around the world ahead of the curve. Founded in 2011 in Vancouver, Visual Capitalist is one of the fastest growing publishers globally with content focused on markets, technology, energy, and the global economy. Our infographics have been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Zero Hedge, Maclean’s, Gizmodo, The Vancouver Sun, and Business Insider.

[Source](https://share.google/GXVOqKATCemy67c3N)

trainmobile

And to think, this is based off the FBI's UCR data. So, states like New York, where less than 24% of their law enforcement departments even responded with a full year's worth of data, are going to be higher than what is presently listed.

SpaceKalash05

Due_Praline_8538

Why is New Mexico’s crime rate so high?

HunterM567

[deleted]

Why is Florida so low?  And, even weirder, why is Alaska so high?

thedummyman

New England really is the best place to live

AvailableMilk2633

I have a really difficult time believing those numbers for Mississippi.

McRando42

See that state with the lowest number?  It’s sometimes (proudly) referred to as the 11th province of Canada.

HalJordan2424

Now compare it with any civilized country

Trolololol66

Interesting that Maine and NH have such low violent crime rates. Too bad they aren’t very diverse.

Awrfhyesggrdghkj

Almost like it’s correlated perfectly with poverty and population density

Fin-fan-boom-bam

Really need to take population density into account too. Larger populations have a statistically larger rate of crime.

KuroShuriken

2022 was 3 years ago any chance you could pull 2024…

ojknows94

Robbery is not merely property crime.

Robbery is considered a violent crime, because of rhe use of force or the threat of use of force against someone, to take their property. Because of this, the threat to personal safety, robberies are a violent crime.

FartingKiwi

Steak-Complex

I grew up in NE Oklahoma not too far from AR and it wasn't so bad when I was there in the early 2010s, not sure what happened, also curious what on earth happened in NM...

Trictities2012

This is by state per capita. Do it be county or city

profarxh

Love reading the commenters in here doing backflips to try and come up with ways to disprove data that goes against their beliefs lol. Same exact thing anti science people do. Either you believe data or you are a denier. You can't pick and choose. It's ok to admit that certain demographics have a cultural issue that stems from poverty. If you ignore it it doesn't just go away.

isurvivedmonkeypox

KingYeti69

Anyone know what Tennessee would be if you dropped Memphis?

th0rnpaw

Sounds like the federal government needs to step in and stop the violent crime epidemic in the south. If they won't do something about it, Trump will!

Global-Advert3758

Jeagan2002

This is always such an annoying topic because of how everything gets misrepresented.

**Can we just fast-forward?**  

Yes it's usually urban areas driving the numbers.  

Yes these areas typically vote Dem.  

No that does not mean Dem policies are the *driving force* instead of population density.

Even if some Dem policies lead to more violent demographics moving closer to government services, is that a reason not to help these people?

There are some Dem policies I disagree with when it comes to arrests and incarceration, but do we have evidence these affect violent crime rates?

AutoManoPeeing

For how much flak Florida receives they doin relatively well in comparison to most

Leading-Orange-2092

tomski3500

potatoMan8111

I’ll be sending this to my mother in KY any time she gripes about my upcoming move from AL to IL!

Riot502

That's wild I have the exact same revolver

LittleMerk68

It_just_works_bro

economaster

Good ol’ Alaska, no one ever thinks Alaska is bad but it is. Rape,murder,theft everything it’s bad up there

weldmonkeyweld

There is a theory that the violent crime along the Mississippi river began with river pirates after the Civil War. The area was very remote but packed with expensive goods on river barges. The local communities became used to being governed by gangs of ex-military pirates who were discharged without skills or jobs.  Of course there were also millions of slaves freed without any skills or jobs so it was a perfect brew for anarchy. Strangers are still not welcome in many small towns along the river.

Faroutman1234

Don't call it a comeback, I been here for years
I'm rockin' my peers, puttin' suckers in fear
Makin' the tears rain down like a monsoon
Listen to the bass go boom
Explosions, overpowerin'
Over the competition, I'm towerin'
Wrecking shop, when I drop
These lyrics that'll make you call the cops
Don't you dare stare
You better move, don't ever compare
Me to the rest that'll all get sliced and diced
Competition's payin' the price

jules6815

Except DC is not a state. It’s a city, and probably has average crime for similarly sized cities.

wbruce098

Excuse to screech about black people being violent post #4,279.

Don’t you people have anything better to do?

kangorooz99

Remove New Orleans and Louisiana turns very light pink.

Dagwood-Sanwich

What’s up with South Dakota and Montana? There’s  25 people between both states. Is this human on animal crime?

JET1385

I was about to joke that DC would be the highest because of the war criminals but...

AndrewDrossArt

No surprise that DC is in the lead, it’s a massive shithole outside of the tourist areas

John_Sobieski22

CarryBeginning1564

Crazy that VT is worse than Rhode Island and New Jersey.

Left-Cry2817

grade708

As a guy raised in the smokey mountains I was confused when I saw that Tennessee was so high up there.  Then I remembered, "Oh, yeah... Memphis..."

MertwithYert

Amph1b10usAssaultC0w

Why is Alaska so high? Who is committing so many crimes in Alaska?

Lilly_in_the_Pond

Yeah hard to believe the state that limits alcohol and upholds religious and moral values has one of the lowest rates. Not to mention being one of the most conservative states. 

Constant_Asp

Iowans literally complain about criminals coming in from IL are we stupid

LevelPerspective2

One contribution is the fact that Alaska is dominated by resource extraction industries - O&amp;G, mining, timber, and commercial fishing. All of those industries are well known for bringing crime into the regions where they exist. Also, we are a red state with poor education outcomes.  While it is not true across all states, it is true better than 90% of the time that the red states have more crime than blue states, more poverty, and more of all the other social ills.

We red states just can't do better than we do. It's just the way it is. We're always on the wrong side of the bell curve for humanity, but we think we're better than people who actually do better.

gnostic_savage

Yesbothsides

Apparently Utah doesn't count as a rural west state because its violent crime rate is super low on this map.

spoilerdudegetrekt

One of the issues with the crime and public safety debate is that public perceptions of safety are much more strongly associated with levels of public disorder, which is linked to lower level crimes like shoplifting, subway fare evasion, public drug use, etc. 


The other thing is that violent crime tends to be hyper localized. In Chicago, for example, almost all of the homicides occur in just a few neighborhoods on the West and South sides. Some research suggests that just 5% of street segments can account for 50% of all the crime in a city. 


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Crime_Concentration


Too often people get bogged down in "well the violent crime rates are down from COVID era highs" or "well actually these states have higher per capita homicides" when the debate is really a proxy for broader issues with public disorder. 

FootjobFromFurina

This really needs to be by county to tell the story.  There are several out there, but some of them are dated.

Violent Crime (2010)
https://americaninequality.substack.com/p/violent-crime-and-inequality

Homicide (2014)
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fxl23t365qub41.png

Crime Rate (2014)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/crime-rates-by-county/

edit: Updated (unknown) to (2010) thanks /u/ViciousNakedMoleRat

eve-dude

This is really something that should be measured at a county level, or even city/town.

For example here is a [Property Crime Rate by New York County](https://www.reddit.com/r/upstate_new_york/s/ow8c874KNU) map I made. It varies MASSIVELY, from 300 to 3,000.

I'm also not sure the headline matches the data, with Pennsylvania ranking #3 (and not being south or west)

TA-MajestyPalm

[According to FBI statistics noted by Axios](https://www.axios.com/2025/08/15/homicide-rates-highest-blue-cities-red-states) in a separate article: 13 of the top 20 most dangerous cities (homicide)are blue cities in red states. Six of the top 20 most dangerous cities are blue cities in blue states. I believe one of the top 20 most dangerous cities is a red city in a red state.

Blue/liberal cities is the outright common factor and I think this has to do with their propensity to prioritizing criminal advocacy within these cities. More lenient penalties, reduced jail and prison time, reducing the severity of crimes, raising the threshold for something to be considered a criminal offense and so on.

I think their heart is in the right place and they have good intentions, but their intentions are heavily misplaced when one prioritizes criminals over victims and citizens that they're supposed to protect.

InksPenandPaper

Can we into the demoghraphics a little bit more? which areas are more violence?

Responsible-Bar3956

What a silly narrative looking at it by states and using that to assign fault to the political party controlling the state.  City and county governments are responsible for almost all law enforcement and criminal trial courts.  Blue counties have a 60 percent higher homicide rate compared to red counties.  

  
[https://www.foxnews.com/politics/report-shows-blue-counties-have-higher-murder-rate-than-red-calls-out-flawed-studies-promoted-by-top-dems](https://www.foxnews.com/politics/report-shows-blue-counties-have-higher-murder-rate-than-red-calls-out-flawed-studies-promoted-by-top-dems)

At the county level: Blue counties have higher average homicide rates than red counties, with rates 60–88% higher depending on the time period analyzed (e.g., 2002–2008 or 2014–2020). This is largely because homicides are concentrated in urban blue areas within red states, such as cities like Memphis (in red Tennessee) or Birmingham (in red Alabama), which drive up state-level red figures but appear as blue outliers at the county level.

Houstonearler

Crazy that PA is number 3 when the violent crime rate in its largest city has been dropping drastically.

NoREEEEEEtilBrooklyn

California is also one of the more violent states on that map. You would think after 3 to 4 decades of consistently passing gun control their rates of homicide and violent crime would be lower than most other states and not be middling to high.

OnlyLosersBlock

This is not a red vs blue debate. I want to talk about the factors that influence these stats.

The the average violent crime + homicide rate nationally is 359.1 per 100,000 residents.

According to Axios, Alaska has the worst homicide rate per capita at 1,194.3. Second is New Mexico at 757.7.

The average homicide rate nationally is 5 per 100,000.

Alaska and New Mexico are tied for first at 11.3. Pennsylvania is third at 10.1.

Despite the data, Alaska does not make headlines. I also doubt that many Alaskans would say they feel unsafe in their state compared to, say, residents of St. Louis.

The reason Alaska is ranked so highly is because of its low population, which creates more variability. A small denominator can be greatly impacted by minor adjustments in the numerator.

Regarding the present-day debate on crime, which metric is the most valuable? Which jurisdiction? What are the flaws in other crime metrics used in these debates?

EDIT: Thanks for the archive link to the user below: https://archive.is/qfAVh

Lelo_B

California bringing down the west the most is sad. So much money there, but so much poverty. :(

Poverty probably factors in the most. Political division probably accounts for some of it. Drugs, domestic violence. Road rage are in there I am sure.

lordgholin

This article seems to be in response to NG possibly being deployed to Chicago after 55 ppl were shot last weekend...


I'm not really big into news articles designed to push a narrative in response to inconvenient facts the editors don't like.


As someone who grew up in Chi Town, I'm glad I got out of there alive. I hope the NG does go there. I been saying it needs to happen for much longer than Trump has been in politics.

FckRddt1800

So the article is bringing up these crime stats in reference to Trump threatening to deploy the National Guard in blue cities with the pretext being that crime is out of control.  And I have seen it referenced by Drmocrats/left leaning sources that crime rates are higher in other red states or cities, and that this move is purely political.  While I agree that this is a political move, let me explain why its a weak argument and most people aren't fired up about it.

First, people feel like crime is up.  I know stats are also referenced that crime is lower, but lower in relation to what year?  Plenty of cities still do not have crime lower than the levels they were at prior to 2020.  You will hear that "crime has decreased since last year" or that "the crime rate is falling," but in many cases it is purposefully ignoring the fact that crime is still above where it was in 2019, even if it dropped from last year.

I have also seen it claimed that crime is down, while only referencing violent crime.  That's great and all, but a 10% decrease in violent crime with a 40% increase in property crime does not nake people FEEL safer.  There is also the issue of general discord that people feel in their cities when rates of homelessness increase and there are huge homeless encampments outside of their apartment building or in the park that they used to bring their kids to.  Having the mentally ill and drug users constantly harass you might not technically be a crime, but definitely doesn't make people feel safe.

And lets not forget that trust in institutions are at an all time low.  So when the politicians that run these cities, who have been lying about/ignoring the crime problem for the past decade, tell people that there is no need for additional law enforcement, people aren't buying it.  That's why you hear people also say that crime is being underreported as well, and i find it hard to disagree.  This crime issue has been festering for long enough that it's hard to say that some kind of action is unwarranted.

Second, the claim that Trump is deploying the National Guard to only blue cities and not "red cities" is laughable.  Not because it's untrue, but because there just really aren't red cities.  A quick query for red cities lists Jacksonville, FL and Fort Worth, TX but both of those cities barely break a million in population if at all.  For reference, Jacksonville and Fort Worth are the 10th and 11th largest, with Oklahoma City coming in 20th, and Mesa, AZ coming in 37th.  On top of that, most cities are extremely left leaning, while the "red cities" tend to be more purple or have a slight right lean to them.  So to say that Trump is only targeting blue cities is kind of burying the lede, because it obfuscates that cities are.just generally blue.

Finally, the misuse of crime stats to how they would be applied in a practical sense if we are talking about deploying the National Guard to cities.  If we look up the violent crime rate (incidents per 100,000 people), you will see small cities or rural areas pop up high on the list. And it seems reasonable to say that maybe the National Guard should be sent to those locations first, since they have higher crime rates.  But it discounts the fact that deploying in higher population centers will actually have a bigger impact.

For example, lets say I own two stores but they will both decrease in sales unless I intervene.  The first store does $5 million in sales and will decrease by 10%.  The second store does $1 million in sales, but will decrease by 30%.  Even though the second store will decrease at a higher rate, the net loss will be $300k.  Mean while the first store with it's lower rate will have a net loss of $500k.  Now Memphis, TN might have a higher crime rate but has a population of 600k, as opposed to Chicago's 2.7 million.

Cities have a crime problem.  Democrats have a problem addressing crime.  I wish the solution to that problem wasn't deploying National Guard into cities, but unfortunately the lack of addressing these issues, of Democrats sticking their heads in the sand, has given Trump the pretext to do so.  Because people are ultimately tired of watching their cities fall to shit and being harassed constantly on the streets.

Middleclassass

Is this because of economic reasons? I know red states do not have as high producing economies and jobs as blue states along with the same access to safety net programs. But I don’t want to make assumptions. Not sure if this has studies associated with it?

rsantoro

True, but the vast majority of those crimes happen in Blue cities.

Cool-Airline-9172

Southern cities have high crime in their red cities

Also, white southerners, many of whom are Scotch Irish, have higher violence rate than northern Euro whites.

  
For what factor correlates most with homicide see Steve Sailer

Original-Definition2

Recent statistics indicate a dramatic rise in violent crime rates across major US cities, prompting calls for government action and public safety reforms.

Violent Crime Surge in Major US Cities

Why This Matters

Public Sentiment Summary

Highlighted Comments

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What the people want