California reported the largest number of homicides to the FBI in 2023, at 1,929 for the year. Texas recorded the second-highest number of murders, with 1,845 for the year. Homicide victim demographics There were a total of 19,252 reported homicide cases in the U.S. in 2023. When looking at murder victims by gender and ethnicity, the vast majority were male, while just over half of the victims were Black or African American. In addition, homicide victims in the United States were found most likely to be between the ages of 20 and 34 years old, with the majority of victims aged between 17 to 54 years old. Are murders up? In short, no – since the 1990s the number of murders in the U.S. has decreased significantly. In 1990, the murder rate per 100,000 people stood at 9.4, and stood at 5.7 in 2023. It should be noted though that the number of homicides increased slightly from 2014 to 2017, although figures declined again in 2018 and 2019, before ticking up once more in 2020 and 2021. Despite this decline, when viewed in international comparison, the U.S. murder rate is still notably high. For example, the Canadian homicide rate stood at 1.94 in 2023, while the homicide rate in England and Wales was even lower.

In 2022, the New Orleans-Metairie, LA metro area recorded the highest homicide rate of U.S. cities with a population over 250,000, at **** homicides per 100,000 residents, followed by the Memphis, TN-MS-AR metro area. However, homicide data was not recorded in all U.S. metro areas, meaning that there may be some cities with a higher homicide rate. St. Louis St. Louis, which had a murder and nonnegligent manslaughter rate of **** in 2022, is the second-largest city by population in Missouri. It is home to many famous treasures, such as the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team, Washington University in St. Louis, the Saint Louis Zoo, and the renowned Gateway Arch. It is also home to many corporations, such as Monsanto, Arch Coal, and Emerson Electric. The economy of St. Louis is centered around business and healthcare, and boasts ten Fortune 500 companies. Crime in St. Louis Despite all of this, St. Louis suffers from high levels of crime and violence. As of 2023, it was listed as the seventh most dangerous city in the world as a result of their extremely high murder rate. Not only does St. Louis have one of the highest homicide rates in the United States, it also reports one of the highest numbers of violent crimes. Despite high crime levels, the GDP of the St. Louis metropolitan area has been increasing since 2001.

The UNIFORM CRIME REPORTING PROGRAM DATA: SUPPLEMENTARY HOMICIDE REPORTS, 2022 (SHR) provide detailed information on criminal homicides reported to the police. These homicides consist of murders; non-negligent killings also called non-negligent manslaughter; and justifiable homicides. UCR Program contributors compile and submit their crime data by one of two means: either directly to the FBI or through their State UCR Programs. State UCR Programs frequently impose mandatory reporting requirements which have been effective in increasing both the number of reporting agencies as well as the number and accuracy of each participating agency's reports. Each agency may be identified by its numeric state code, alpha-numeric agency ("ORI") code, jurisdiction population, and population group. In addition, each homicide incident is identified by month of occurrence and situation type, allowing flexibility in creating aggregations and subsets.

FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Homicide (Murder and Non-Negligent Manslaughter) victims in the CMPD jurisdiction. Murder and Non-Negligent Manslaughter is defined by the FBI as, "The willful (non-negligent) and illegal (non-justified) killing of one person by another." This dataset is updated nightly and includes geographic coordinates and the NPA (Neighborhood Profile Area) for each homicide (murder) victim when available.

Number and rate (per 100,000 population) of homicide victims, Canada and Census Metropolitan Areas, 1981 to 2024.

The graph illustrates the murder rate in the United States from 1985 to 2023. The x-axis represents the years, labeled with two-digit abbreviations from '85 to '23, while the y-axis shows the annual murder rate per 100,000 individuals. Throughout this 39-year period, the murder rate fluctuates between a high of 10.66 in 1991 and a low of 4.7 in 2014. Overall, the data reveals a significant downward trend in the murder rate from the mid-1980s, reaching its lowest point in the mid-2010s, followed by slight increases in the most recent years.

Map features separate layers by year.

The number of homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in Norway has been relatively stable since 2010, with the exception of 2011. It was at its lowest in 2014, when 0.46 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants were registered, and at its highest in 2011 following the terrorist attack in Oslo and Utøya. In 2021, the homicide rate stood at 0.55. That year, 32 homicide victims were reported in Norway.

Number, rate and percentage changes in rates of homicide victims, Canada, provinces and territories, 1961 to 2024.

The average for 2017 based on 97 countries was 7.4 homicides per 100,000 people. The highest value was in El Salvador: 61.8 homicides per 100,000 people and the lowest value was in Japan: 0.2 homicides per 100,000 people. The indicator is available from 1990 to 2017. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

Number of homicide victims, by method used to commit the homicide (total methods used; shooting; stabbing; beating; strangulation; fire (burns or suffocation); other methods used; methods used unknown), Canada, 1974 to 2024.

The number of people murdered in Mexico amounted to almost 33,300 in 2021, a slightly lower figure to the one registered one year earlier. Mexico ranked as the second Latin American country with the highest number of intentional homicides in 2022, only exceeded by Brazil.

For a comprehensive guide to this data and other UCR data, please see my book at ucrbook.comVersion 13 release notes:Adds 2022 dataVersion 12 release notes:Adds 2021 data.Version 11 release notes:Adds 2020 data. Please note that the FBI has retired UCR data ending in 2020 data so this will be the last SHR data they release. Changes .rda file to .rds.Version 10 release notes:Changes release notes description, does not change data.Version 9 release notes:Adds 2019 data.Version 8 release notes:Adds 2018 data.Changes source of data for years 1985-2018 to be directly from the FBI. 2018 data was received via email from the FBI, 2016-2017 is from the FBI who mailed me a DVD, and 1985-2015 data is from the FBI's Crime Data Explorer site (https://crime-data-explorer.fr.cloud.gov/downloads-and-docs).Adds .csv version of the data.Makes minor changes to value labels for consistency and to fix grammar. Version 7 release notes:Changes project name to avoid confusing this data for the ones done by NACJD.Version 6 release notes:Adds 2017 data.Version 5 release notes:Adds 2016 data.Standardizes the "group" column which categorizes cities and counties by population.Arrange rows in descending order by year and ascending order by ORI. Version 4 release notes: Fix bug where Philadelphia Police Department had incorrect FIPS county code. Version 3 Release Notes:Merges data with LEAIC data to add FIPS codes, census codes, agency type variables, and ORI9 variable.Change column names for relationship variables from offender_n_relation_to_victim_1 to victim_1_relation_to_offender_n to better indicate that all relationship are victim 1's relationship to each offender. Reorder columns.This is a single file containing all data from the Supplementary Homicide Reports from 1976 to 2018. The Supplementary Homicide Report provides detailed information about the victim, offender, and circumstances of the murder. Details include victim and offender age, sex, race, ethnicity (Hispanic/not Hispanic), the weapon used, circumstances of the incident, and the number of both offenders and victims. Years 1976-1984 were downloaded from NACJD, while more recent years are from the FBI. All files came as ASCII+SPSS Setup files and were cleaned using R. The "cleaning" just means that column names were standardized (different years have slightly different spellings for many columns). Standardization of column names is necessary to stack multiple years together. Categorical variables (e.g. state) were also standardized (i.e. fix spelling errors, have terminology be the same across years). The following is the summary of the Supplementary Homicide Report copied from ICPSR's 2015 page for the data.The Uniform Crime Reporting Program Data: Supplementary Homicide Reports (SHR) provide detailed information on criminal homicides reported to the police. These homicides consist of murders; non-negligent killings also called non-negligent manslaughter; and justifiable homicides. UCR Program contributors compile and submit their crime data by one of two means: either directly to the FBI or through their State UCR Programs. State UCR Programs frequently impose mandatory reporting requirements which have been effective in increasing both the number of reporting agencies as well as the number and accuracy of each participating agency's reports. Each agency may be identified by its numeric state code, alpha-numeric agency ("ORI") code, jurisdiction population, and population group. In addition, each homicide incident is identified by month of occurrence and situation type, allowing flexibility in creating aggregations and subsets.

In Europe, the Baltic countries of Latvia and Lithuania had the highest and third highest homicide rates respectively in 2022. Latvia had the highest rate at over four per 100,000 inhabitants. Meanwhile, the lowest homicide rate was found in Liechtenstein, with zero murders The most dangerous country worldwide Saint Kitts and Nevis is the world's most dangerous country to live in in terms of murder rate. The Caribbean country had a homicide rate of 65 per 100,000 inhabitants. Nine of the 10 countries with the highest murder rates worldwide are located in Latin America and the Caribbean. Whereas Celaya in Mexico was listed as the city with the highest murder rate worldwide, Colima in Mexico was the city with the highest homicide rate in Latin America, so the numbers vary from source to source. Nevertheless, several Mexican cities rank among the deadliest in the world when it comes to intentional homicides. Violent conflicts worldwide Notably, these figures do not include deaths that resulted from war or a violent conflict. While there is a persistent number of conflicts worldwide, resulting casualties are not considered murders. Partially due to this reason, homicide rates in Latin America are higher than those in countries such as Ukraine or the DR Congo. A different definition of murder in these circumstances could change the rate significantly.

The number of intentional homicides in Colombia surpassed 13,000 in 2021 and 2022, which represents a major increase versus the previous years. Between 2012 and 2020, the total number of murders in the South American country had steadily declined.

Victims of gang-related homicides (total number of homicide victims; number of homicide victims - unknown gang-relation; number of homicide victims - known gang relation; number of gang-related homicide victims; percentage of gang-related homicide victims; rate (per 100,000 population) of gang-related homicide victims), Canada and regions, 1999 to 2024.

Several countries located in Central America and the Caribbean registered some of the highest homicide rates in the Latin American region in 2022. Jamaica ranked first, with around 53.34 homicides committed per 100,000 inhabitants. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines came second, with 40.41 homicides per 100,000 people. The source defines intentional homicide as the unlawful death inflicted upon a person with the intent to cause death or serious injury. When it comes to the total case count, Brazil was the Latin American country with the largest number of homicide victims. Central America and the falling rates El Salvador was commonly named the murder capital of the world for a few years. The inability of previous governments to control organized crime and gangs resulted in the highest homicide rate in the world for a couple of years. Nonetheless, the current administration and the measures applied during the Emergency State had an incredibly positive impact in terms of the security of the Salvadorean citizens. But not only El Salvador has seen a considerable reduction in its murder rate in Central America. Honduras and Guatemala are also two great examples of crime reduction, introducing new policies, institutions, and changes to their judicial system to achieve better results.
The Caribbean still ridden by crime Some islands in the Caribbean are not only known as tax heavens, as some nations in the region are considered the main enablers of tax evasion in the world, but also for being ridden by crime. Haiti is one example of the still rising levels of criminality. As a country with precarious conditions and extreme food insecurity, the homicide rate has been on the rise for almost four consecutive years. Another one is Jamaica, the top of the Latin American ranking, that has also seen an increase in the youth involved in organized crime due to lack of employment and economic conditions.

In response to a growing concern about hate crimes, the United States Congress enacted the Hate Crime Statistics Act of 1990. The Act requires the attorney general to establish guidelines and collect, as part of the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, data "about crimes that manifest evidence of prejudice based on race, religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity, including where appropriate the crimes of murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, aggravated assault, simple assault, intimidation, arson, and destruction, damage or vandalism of property." Hate crime data collection was required by the Act to begin in calendar year 1990 and to continue for four successive years. In September 1994, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act amended the Hate Crime Statistics Act to add disabilities, both physical and mental, as factors that could be considered a basis for hate crimes. Although the Act originally mandated data collection for five years, the Church Arson Prevention Act of 1996 amended the collection duration "for each calendar year," making hate crime statistics a permanent addition to the UCR program. As with the other UCR data, law enforcement agencies contribute reports either directly or through their state reporting programs. Information contained in the data includes number of victims and offenders involved in each hate crime incident, type of victims, bias motivation, offense type, and location type.

Intentional homicides (per 100,000 people) in United States was reported at 6.8075 in 2021, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. United States - Intentional homicides (per 100;000 people) - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on July of 2025.