In 2025, Pietermaritzburg in South Africa ranked as the world's most dangerous city with a crime rate of 82 per 100,000 inhabitants. Five of the 10 cities with the highest crime rates worldwide are found in South Africa. The list does not include countries where war and conflict exist. South Africa dominates crime statistics When looking at crime rates, among the 10 most dangerous cities in the world, half of them are found in South Africa. The country is struggling with extremely high levels of inequality, and is struggling with high levels of crime and power outages, harming the country's economy and driving more people into unemployment and poverty. Crime in Latin America On the other hand, when looking at murder rates, Latin America dominates the list of the world's most dangerous countries. Violence in Latin America is caused in great part by drug trafficking, weapons trafficking, and gang wars.

Turks and Caicos Islands saw a murder rate of 103.1 per 100,000 inhabitants, making it the most dangerous country for this kind of crime worldwide as of 2024. Interestingly, El Salvador, which long had the highest global homicide rates, has dropped out of the top 29 after a high number of gang members have been incarcerated. Meanwhile, Colima in Mexico was the most dangerous city for murders. 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 Afghanistan or Syria. A different definition of murder in these circumstances could change the rate significantly in some countries. Causes of death Also, noteworthy is that murders are usually not random events. In the United States, the circumstances of murders are most commonly arguments, followed by narcotics incidents and robberies. Additionally, murders are not a leading cause of death. Heart diseases, strokes and cancer pose a greater threat to life than violent crime.

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.

This study focused on the effect of economic resources and racial/ethnic composition on the change in crime rates from 1970-2004 in United States cities in metropolitan areas that experienced a large growth in population after World War II. A total of 352 cities in the following United States metropolitan areas were selected for this study: Atlanta, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Las Vegas, Miami, Orange County, Orlando, Phoenix, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, Silicon Valley (Santa Clara), and Tampa/St. Petersburg. Selection was based on the fact that these areas developed during a similar time period and followed comparable development trajectories. In particular, these 14 areas, known as the "boomburbs" for their dramatic, post-World War II population growth, all faced issues relating to the rapid growth of tract-style housing and the subsequent development of low density, urban sprawls. The study combined place-level data obtained from the United States Census with crime data from the Uniform Crime Reports for five categories of Type I crimes: aggravated assaults, robberies, murders, burglaries, and motor vehicle thefts. The dataset contains a total of 247 variables pertaining to crime, economic resources, and race/ethnic composition.

In 2024, the highest homicide rate among 22 Latin American and Caribbean countries surveyed was in Haiti, with around 62 murders committed per 100,000 inhabitants. Trinidad and Tobago came in second, with a homicide rate of 46, while Honduras ranked seventh, with 25. In the same year, the lowest rate was recorded in El Salvador, with a homicide rate of 1.9 per 100,000 inhabitants. A violence-ridden region Violence and crime are some of the most pressing problems affecting Latin American society nowadays. More than 40 of the 50 most dangerous cities in the world are located in this region, as well as one of the twenty countries with the least peace in the world according to the Global Peace Index. Despite governments’ large spending on security and high imprisonment rates, drug and weapon trafficking, organized crime, and gangs have turned violence into an epidemic that affects the whole region and a solution to this issue appears to be hardly attainable. The cost of violence in Mexico Mexico stands out as an example of the great cost that violence inflicts upon a country, since beyond claiming human lives, it also affects everyday life and has a negative impact on the economy. Mexicans have a high perceived level of insecurity, as they do not only fear becoming victims of homicide, but also of other common crimes, such as assault or rape. Such fear prevents people from performing everyday activities, for instance, going out at night, taking a taxi or going to the movies or the theater. Furthermore, the economic toll of violence in Mexico is more than considerable. For example, the cost of homicide and violent crime amounted to 2099.8 and 1778.1 billion Mexican pesos in 2023, respectively.

Several countries located in Central America and the Caribbean registered some of the highest homicide rates in the Latin American region in 2023. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines ranked first, with around 51.32 homicides committed per 100,000 inhabitants. Jamaica came in second with 49.44 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 is 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, at 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.

Violent Crime in CA

Regional, County, City/Town Rates 2006-2010

By Health [source]

About this dataset

This dataset contains information on the rate of violent crime across California - its regions, counties, cities and towns. The data was collected as part of a larger effort by the Office of Health Equity to better understand public health indicators and ensure equitable outcomes for all.

The numbers reflect more than just a problem in California communities - it reflects a problem with unequal access to resources and opportunity across race, ethnicities and geographies. African Americans in California are 11 times more likely to die from assault or homicide compared to white Californians. Similarly, certain regions report higher crime rates than others at the county level- indicating underlying issues with poverty or institutionalized inequality.

Law enforcement agencies teamed up with the Federal Bureau of Investigations’ Uniform Crime Reports to collect this data table which includes details such as reported number of violent crimes (numerator), population size (denominator), rate per 1,000 population (ratex1000) confidence intervals (LL_95CI & UL_95CI ) standard errors & relative standard errors (se & rse) as well as ratios between city/town rates vs state rates (RR_city2state). Additionally, each record is classified according to region name/code and race/ethnicity code/name , giving researchers further insight into these troubling statistics at both macro and micro levels.

Armed with this information we can explore new ways identify inequitable areas and begin looking for potential solutions that combat health disparities within our communities like never before!

More Datasets

For more datasets, click here.

Featured Notebooks

• 🚨 Your notebook can be here! 🚨!

How to use the dataset

The data is presented with twenty columns providing various segments within each row including:

• Crime definition
• Race/ethnicity code
• Region code
• Geographic area identifier
• Numerator and Denominator values of population
• Standard Error and 95% Confidence Intervals
• Relatvie Standard Error (RSE) value

• Ratios related to city/towns rate to state rate

  The information provided can be used for a variety of applications such as creating visualizations or developing predictive models. It is important to note that rates are expressed per 1,000 population for their respective geographic area during each period noted by the report year field within the dataset. Additionally CA_decile column may be useful in comparing counties due numerical grading system identifying a region’s percentile ranking when compared to other counties within the current year’s entire dataset as well as ratios present under RR_city2state which presents ratio comparison between city/town rate and state rate outside given geographic area have made this an extremely valuable dataset for further analysis

Research Ideas

• Developing a crime prediction and prevention program that uses machine learning models to identify criminal hotspots and direct resources to those areas
• Exploring the connection between race/ethnicity and rates of violence in California
• Creating visualizations and interactive maps to display types of violent crime across different counties within California

Acknowledgements

If you use this dataset in your research, please credit the original authors. Data Source

License

License: Open Database License (ODbL) v1.0 - You are free to: - Share - copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format. - Adapt - remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially. - You must: - Give appropriate credit - Provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. - ShareAlike - You must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original. - Keep intact - all notices that refer to this license, including copyright notices. - No Derivatives - If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material. - No additional restrictions - You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.

Columns

File: Violent_Crime_Rate_California_2006-2010-DD.csv

File: rows.csv | Column name | Description ...

The Fifth United Nations Survey, covering the years 1990-1994, was designed to collect data on the incidence of reported crime and the operation of criminal justice systems with a view to improving the dissemination of that information globally. To that end, the survey facilitates an overview of trends and interrelationships among various parts of the criminal justice system to promote informed decision-making in its administration, nationally and crossnationally. Variables describe combined police and prosecution expenditure by year and by country, number of police personnel by gender, total number of homicides by country and by city, number of assaults, rapes, robberies, thefts, burglaries, frauds, and embezzlements, amount of drug crime, number of people formally charged with crime, age of suspects, number and gender of prosecutors, number of individuals prosecuted and the types of crimes prosecuted, gender and age of individuals prosecuted, types of courts, number of individuals convicted and acquitted, numbers sentenced to capital punishment and various other punishments, number of convictions on various charges, number of individuals sentenced and in detention, number of prisoners, sentence lengths, and prison demographics.

This table contains data on the rate of violent crime (crimes per 1,000 population) for California, its regions, counties, cities and towns. Crime and population data are from the Federal Bureau of Investigations, Uniform Crime Reports. Rates above the city/town level include data from city, university and college, county, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement agencies. The table is part of a series of indicators in the Healthy Communities Data and Indicators Project of the Office of Health Equity. Ten percent of all deaths in young California adults aged 15-44 years are related to assault and homicide. In 2010, California law enforcement agencies reported 1,809 murders, 8,331 rapes, and over 95,000 aggravated assaults. African Americans in California are 11 times more likely to die of assault and homicide than Whites. More information about the data table and a data dictionary can be found in the About/Attachments section.

There has been little research on United States homicide rates from a long-term perspective, primarily because there has been no consistent data series on a particular place preceding the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR), which began its first full year in 1931. To fill this research gap, this project created a data series on homicides per capita for New York City that spans two centuries. The goal was to create a site-specific, individual-based data series that could be used to examine major social shifts related to homicide, such as mass immigration, urban growth, war, demographic changes, and changes in laws. Data were also gathered on various other sites, particularly in England, to allow for comparisons on important issues, such as the post-World War II wave of violence. The basic approach to the data collection was to obtain the best possible estimate of annual counts and the most complete information on individual homicides. The annual count data (Parts 1 and 3) were derived from multiple sources, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Reports and Supplementary Homicide Reports, as well as other official counts from the New York City Police Department and the City Inspector in the early 19th century. The data include a combined count of murder and manslaughter because charge bargaining often blurs this legal distinction. The individual-level data (Part 2) were drawn from coroners' indictments held by the New York City Municipal Archives, and from daily newspapers. Duplication was avoided by keeping a record for each victim. The estimation technique known as "capture-recapture" was used to estimate homicides not listed in either source. Part 1 variables include counts of New York City homicides, arrests, and convictions, as well as the homicide rate, race or ethnicity and gender of victims, type of weapon used, and source of data. Part 2 includes the date of the murder, the age, sex, and race of the offender and victim, and whether the case led to an arrest, trial, conviction, execution, or pardon. Part 3 contains annual homicide counts and rates for various comparison sites including Liverpool, London, Kent, Canada, Baltimore, Los Angeles, Seattle, and San Francisco.

Historical dataset showing World crime rate per 100K population by year from 2000 to 2020.

In 2023, around 3,640.56 violent crimes per 100,000 residents were reported in Oakland, California. This made Oakland the most dangerous city in the United States in that year. Four categories of violent crimes were used: murder and non-negligent manslaughter; forcible rape; robbery; and aggravated assault. Only cities with a population of at least 200,000 were considered.

The average for 2017 based on 79 countries was 105 robberies per 100,000 people. The highest value was in Costa Rica: 1587 robberies per 100,000 people and the lowest value was in Oman: 1 robberies per 100,000 people. The indicator is available from 2003 to 2017. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

The Fourth United Nations Survey, covering the years 1986-1990, was designed to increase knowledge regarding the incidence of reported crime and the structure of criminal justice systems, as a basis for improving the international exchange of information. The main objectives of the survey were to determine which data are generally available in national databases and to provide an instrument for strengthening cooperation among member states of the United Nations by putting the review and analysis of national crime-related data in a broader context. Variables describe combined police and prosecution expenditure by year and by country, number of police personnel by gender, total number of homicides by country and by city, number of assaults, rapes, robberies, thefts, burglaries, frauds, and embezzlements, amount of drug crime, number of people formally charged with crime, age of suspects, number and gender of prosecutors, number of individuals prosecuted and the types of crimes prosecuted for, gender and age of individuals prosecuted, types of courts, number of individuals convicted and acquitted, numbers sentenced to capital punishment and to various other punishments, number of convictions on various charges, number of individuals sentenced and in detention, number of prisoners, sentence lengths, and prison demographics.

This dataset shows City level data for all over the United States, and has various attributes for different crimes. Cities are shown as Latitude and longitude points. Attributes include murder, manslaughter, violent crimes, arson, motor vehicle theft, property crimes, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, theft, and rape. Data was provided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Source: FBI URL: http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2006/data/table_08.html

Investigator(s): United Nations Office at Vienna, R.W. Burnham, Helen Burnham, Bruce DiCristina, and Graeme Newman The United Nations Surveys of Crime Trends and Operations of Criminal Justice Systems (formerly known as the United Nations World Crime Surveys) series was begun in 1978 and is comprised of five quinquennial surveys covering the years 1970-1975, 1975-1980, 1980-1986, 1986-1990, and 1990-1994. The project was supported by the United States Bureau of Justice Statistics, and conducted under the auspices of the United Nations Criminal Justice and Crime Prevention Branch, United Nations Office in Vienna. Data gathered on crime prevention and criminal justice among member nations provide information for policy development and program planning. The main objectives of the survey include: to conduct a more focused inquiry into the incidence of crime worldwide, to improve knowledge about the incidence of reported crime in the global development perspective and also international understanding of effective ways to counteract crime, to improve the dissemination globally of the information collected, to facilitate an overview of trends and interrelationships among various parts of the criminal justice system so as to promote informed decision-making in its administration, nationally and cross-nationally, and to serve as an instrument for strengthening cooperation among member states by putting the review and analysis of national crime-related data in a broader context. The surveys also provide a valuable source of charting trends in crime and criminal justice over two decades.

These data examine the effects on total crime rates of changes in the demographic composition of the population and changes in criminality of specific age and race groups. The collection contains estimates from national data of annual age-by-race specific arrest rates and crime rates for murder, robbery, and burglary over the 21-year period 1965-1985. The data address the following questions: (1) Are the crime rates reported by the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) data series valid indicators of national crime trends? (2) How much of the change between 1965 and 1985 in total crime rates for murder, robbery, and burglary is attributable to changes in the age and race composition of the population, and how much is accounted for by changes in crime rates within age-by-race specific subgroups? (3) What are the effects of age and race on subgroup crime rates for murder, robbery, and burglary? (4) What is the effect of time period on subgroup crime rates for murder, robbery, and burglary? (5) What is the effect of birth cohort, particularly the effect of the very large (baby-boom) cohorts following World War II, on subgroup crime rates for murder, robbery, and burglary? (6) What is the effect of interactions among age, race, time period, and cohort on subgroup crime rates for murder, robbery, and burglary? (7) How do patterns of age-by-race specific crime rates for murder, robbery, and burglary compare for different demographic subgroups? The variables in this study fall into four categories. The first category includes variables that define the race-age cohort of the unit of observation. The values of these variables are directly available from UCR and include year of observation (from 1965-1985), age group, and race. The second category of variables were computed using UCR data pertaining to the first category of variables. These are period, birth cohort of age group in each year, and average cohort size for each single age within each single group. The third category includes variables that describe the annual age-by-race specific arrest rates for the different crime types. These variables were estimated for race, age, group, crime type, and year using data directly available from UCR and population estimates from Census publications. The fourth category includes variables similar to the third group. Data for estimating these variables were derived from available UCR data on the total number of offenses known to the police and total arrests in combination with the age-by-race specific arrest rates for the different crime types.

Historical dataset showing World murder/homicide rate per 100K population by year from 2000 to 2020.

The average for 2017 based on 35 countries was 1.7 homicides per 100,000 people. The highest value was in Russia: 9.2 homicides per 100,000 people and the lowest value was in Luxembourg: 0.3 homicides per 100,000 people. The indicator is available from 1990 to 2017. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

The United Nations International Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Branch began the Surveys of Crime Trends and Operations of Criminal Justice Systems (formerly known as the World Crime Surveys) in 1978. The goal of the data collection effort was to conduct a more focused inquiry into the incidence of crime worldwide. To date, there have been five quinquennial surveys, covering the years 1970-1975, 1975-1980, 1980-1986, 1986-1990, and 1990-1994, respectively. Starting with the 1980 data, the waves overlap by one year to allow for reliability and validity checks of the data. For this data collection, the original United Nations data were restructured into a standard contemporary file structure, with each file consisting of all data for one year. Naming conventions were standardized, and each country and each variable was given a unique identifying number. Crime variables include counts of recorded crime for homicide, assault, rape, robbery, theft, burglary, fraud, embezzlement, drug trafficking, drug possession, bribery, and corruption. There are also counts of suspects, persons prosecuted, persons convicted, and prison admissions by crime, gender, and adult or juvenile status. Other variables include the population of the country and largest city, budgets and salaries for police, courts, and prisons, and types of sanctions, including imprisonment, corporal punishment, deprivation of liberty, control of freedom, warning, fine, and community sentence. The countries participating in the survey and the variables available vary by year.