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.

In 2023, the District of Columbia had the highest reported violent crime rate in the United States, with 1,150.9 violent crimes per 100,000 of the population. Maine had the lowest reported violent crime rate, with 102.5 offenses per 100,000 of the population. Life in the District The District of Columbia has seen a fluctuating population over the past few decades. Its population decreased throughout the 1990s, when its crime rate was at its peak, but has been steadily recovering since then. While unemployment in the District has also been falling, it still has had a high poverty rate in recent years. The gentrification of certain areas within Washington, D.C. over the past few years has made the contrast between rich and poor even greater and is also pushing crime out into the Maryland and Virginia suburbs around the District. Law enforcement in the U.S. Crime in the U.S. is trending downwards compared to years past, despite Americans feeling that crime is a problem in their country. In addition, the number of full-time law enforcement officers in the U.S. has increased recently, who, in keeping with the lower rate of crime, have also made fewer arrests than in years past.

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

In 2023, the District of Columbia had the highest rate of murder and non-negligent manslaughter in the United States with a rate of 39 murders or non-negligent manslaughters per 100,000 inhabitants. Louisiana, New Mexico, Alabama, and Tennessee rounded out the top five states with the highest murder rates.

Number, percentage and rate (per 100,000 population) of homicide victims, by racialized identity group (total, by racialized identity group; racialized identity group; South Asian; Chinese; Black; Filipino; Arab; Latin American; Southeast Asian; West Asian; Korean; Japanese; other racialized identity group; multiple racialized identity; racialized identity, but racialized identity group is unknown; rest of the population; unknown racialized identity group), gender (all genders; male; female; gender unknown) and region (Canada; Atlantic region; Quebec; Ontario; Prairies region; British Columbia; territories), 2019 to 2024.

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.

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.

Comprehensive crime statistics for Los Angeles County's most dangerous neighborhoods including violent crime rates, property crime rates, gang activity, and annual victimization chances by neighborhood for 2024-2025.

Comprehensive crime statistics for Orange County including homicides, violent crime, property crime, and city-by-city breakdowns with five-year trend analysis.

Crime severity index (violent, non-violent, youth) and weighted clearance rates (violent, non-violent), Canada, provinces, territories and Census Metropolitan Areas, 1998 to 2024.

Serious violent crimes consist of Part 1 offenses as defined by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Uniform Reporting Statistics. These include murders, nonnegligent homicides, rapes (legacy and revised), robberies, and aggravated assaults. LAPD data were used for City of Los Angeles, LASD data were used for unincorporated areas and cities that contract with LASD for law enforcement services, and CA Attorney General data were used for all other cities with local police departments. This indicator is based on location of residence. Single-year data are only available for Los Angeles County overall, Service Planning Areas, Supervisorial Districts, City of Los Angeles overall, and City of Los Angeles Council Districts.Neighborhood violence and crime can have a harmful impact on all members of a community. Living in communities with high rates of violence and crime not only exposes residents to a greater personal risk of injury or death, but it can also render individuals more susceptible to many adverse health outcomes. People who are regularly exposed to violence and crime are more likely to suffer from chronic stress, depression, anxiety, and other mental health conditions. They are also less likely to be able to use their parks and neighborhoods for recreation and physical activity.For more information about the Community Health Profiles Data Initiative, please see the initiative homepage.

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

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.

In 2023, an estimated 1,21,467 violent crimes occurred in the United States. This is a decrease from the year before, when 1,256,671 violent crimes were reported. Violent crime in the United States The Federal Bureau of Investigation reported that violent crime fell nationwide in the period from 1990 to 2023. Violent crime was at a height of 1.93 million crimes in 1992, but has since reached a low of 1.15 million violent crimes in 2014. When conducting crime reporting, the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program considered murder, nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault to be violent crimes, because they are offenses which involve force or threat of violence. In 2023, there were 19,252 reported murder and nonnegligent manslaughter cases in the United States. California ranked first on a list of U.S. states by number of murders, followed by Texas, and Florida.The greatest number of murders were committed by murderers of unknown relationship to their victim. “Girlfriend” was the fourth most common relationship of victim to offender in 2023, with a reported 568 partners murdering their girlfriends that year, while the sixth most common was “wife.” In addition, seven people were murdered by their employees and 12 people were murdered by their employers. The most used murder weapon in 2023 was the handgun, which was used in 7,1 murders that year. According to the FBI, firearms (of all types) were used in more than half of the nation’s murders. The total number of firearms manufactured in the U.S. annually has reached over 13 million units.

Context

The Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program has been the starting place for law enforcement executives, students of criminal justice, researchers, members of the media, and the public at large seeking information on crime in the nation. The program was conceived in 1929 by the International Association of Chiefs of Police to meet the need for reliable uniform crime statistics for the nation. In 1930, the FBI was tasked with collecting, publishing, and archiving those statistics.

Today, four annual publications, Crime in the United States, National Incident-Based Reporting System, Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted, and Hate Crime Statistics are produced from data received from over 18,000 city, university/college, county, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement agencies voluntarily participating in the program. The crime data are submitted either through a state UCR Program or directly to the FBI’s UCR Program.

This dataset focuses on the crime rates and law enforcement employment data in the state of California.

Content

Crime and law enforcement employment rates are separated into individual files, focusing on offenses by enforcement agency, college/university campus, county, and city. Categories of crimes reported include violent crime, murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, property crime, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle damage, and arson. In the case of rape, data is collected for both revised and legacy definitions. In some cases, a small number of enforcement agencies switched definition collection sometime within the same year.

Acknowledgements

This dataset originates from the FBI UCR project, and the complete dataset for all 2015 crime reports can be found here.

Inspiration

• What are the most common types of crimes in California? Are there certain crimes that are more common in a particular place category, such as a college/university campus, compared to the rest of the state?
• How does the number of law enforcement officers compare to the crime rates of a particular area? Is the ratio similar throughout the state, or do certain campuses, counties, or cities have a differing rate?
• How does the legacy vs. refined definition of rape differ, and how do the rape counts compare? If you pulled the same data from FBI datasets for previous years, can you see a difference in rape rates over time?

In 2023, ********* property and violent crimes were reported in California - the most out of any state. Texas followed behind, with ******* reported crimes. However, as the FBI estimates national trends of crime by asking law enforcement agencies across the country to self-report their crime data, the reported number of crimes committed in each state is dependent upon whether they provided the information to the Bureau's crime reporting system. For example, the state of Florida reported only *** percent of their crime data in 2022, raising the question of whether Florida has again failed to report the majority of their crimes in 2023 and if they should be higher up on this list. As many states have neglected to report all of their crime data to the FBI in the last few years, the total numbers may not accurately represent the number of crimes committed in each state.

In 1980, the National Institute of Justice awarded a grant to the Cornell University College of Human Ecology for the establishment of the Center for the Study of Race, Crime, and Social Policy in Oakland, California. This center mounted a long-term research project that sought to explain the wide variation in crime statistics by race and ethnicity. Using information from eight ethnic communities in Oakland, California, representing working- and middle-class Black, White, Chinese, and Hispanic groups, as well as additional data from Oakland's justice systems and local organizations, the center conducted empirical research to describe the criminalization process and to explore the relationship between race and crime. The differences in observed patterns and levels of crime were analyzed in terms of: (1) the abilities of local ethnic communities to contribute to, resist, neutralize, or otherwise affect the criminalization of its members, (2) the impacts of criminal justice policies on ethnic communities and their members, and (3) the cumulative impacts of criminal justice agency decisions on the processing of individuals in the system. Administrative records data were gathered from two sources, the Alameda County Criminal Oriented Records Production System (CORPUS) (Part 1) and the Oakland District Attorney Legal Information System (DALITE) (Part 2). In addition to collecting administrative data, the researchers also surveyed residents (Part 3), police officers (Part 4), and public defenders and district attorneys (Part 5). The eight study areas included a middle- and low-income pair of census tracts for each of the four racial/ethnic groups: white, Black, Hispanic, and Asian. Part 1, Criminal Oriented Records Production System (CORPUS) Data, contains information on offenders' most serious felony and misdemeanor arrests, dispositions, offense codes, bail arrangements, fines, jail terms, and pleas for both current and prior arrests in Alameda County. Demographic variables include age, sex, race, and marital status. Variables in Part 2, District Attorney Legal Information System (DALITE) Data, include current and prior charges, days from offense to charge, disposition, and arrest, plea agreement conditions, final results from both municipal court and superior court, sentence outcomes, date and outcome of arraignment, disposition, and sentence, number and type of enhancements, numbers of convictions, mistrials, acquittals, insanity pleas, and dismissals, and factors that determined the prison term. For Part 3, Oakland Community Crime Survey Data, researchers interviewed 1,930 Oakland residents from eight communities. Information was gathered from community residents on the quality of schools, shopping, and transportation in their neighborhoods, the neighborhood's racial composition, neighborhood problems, such as noise, abandoned buildings, and drugs, level of crime in the neighborhood, chances of being victimized, how respondents would describe certain types of criminals in terms of age, race, education, and work history, community involvement, crime prevention measures, the performance of the police, judges, and attorneys, victimization experiences, and fear of certain types of crimes. Demographic variables include age, sex, race, and family status. For Part 4, Oakland Police Department Survey Data, Oakland County police officers were asked about why they joined the police force, how they perceived their role, aspects of a good and a bad police officer, why they believed crime was down, and how they would describe certain beats in terms of drug availability, crime rates, socioeconomic status, number of juveniles, potential for violence, residential versus commercial, and degree of danger. Officers were also asked about problems particular neighborhoods were experiencing, strategies for reducing crime, difficulties in doing police work well, and work conditions. Demographic variables include age, sex, race, marital status, level of education, and years on the force. In Part 5, Public Defender/District Attorney Survey Data, public defenders and district attorneys were queried regarding which offenses were increasing most rapidly in Oakland, and they were asked to rank certain offenses in terms of seriousness. Respondents were also asked about the public's influence on criminal justice agencies and on the performance of certain criminal justice agencies. Respondents were presented with a list of crimes and asked how typical these offenses were and what factors influenced their decisions about such cases (e.g., intent, motive, evidence, behavior, prior history, injury or loss, substance abuse, emotional trauma). Other variables measured how often and under what circumstances the public defender and client and the public defender and the district attorney agreed on the case, defendant characteristics in terms of who should not be put on the stand, the effects of Proposition 8, public defender and district attorney plea guidelines, attorney discretion, and advantageous and disadvantageous characteristics of a defendant. Demographic variables include age, sex, race, marital status, religion, years of experience, and area of responsibility.

Number, percentage and rate (per 100,000 population) of homicide victims, by gender (all genders; male; female; gender unknown) and Indigenous identity (total; Indigenous identity; non-Indigenous identity; unknown Indigenous identity), Canada, provinces and territories, 2014 to 2020.

Crime severity index (violent, non-violent, youth) and weighted clearance rates (violent, non-violent), police services in British Columbia, 1998 to 2024.

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.