In 2023, the violent crime rate in the United States was 363.8 cases per 100,000 of the population. Even though the violent crime rate has been decreasing since 1990, the United States tops the ranking of countries with the most prisoners. In addition, due to the FBI's transition to a new crime reporting system in which law enforcement agencies voluntarily submit crime reports, data may not accurately reflect the total number of crimes committed in recent years. Reported violent crime rate in the United States The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation tracks the rate of reported violent crimes per 100,000 U.S. inhabitants. In the timeline above, rates are shown starting in 1990. The rate of reported violent crime has fallen since a high of 758.20 reported crimes in 1991 to a low of 363.6 reported violent crimes in 2014. In 2023, there were around 1.22 million violent crimes reported to the FBI in the United States. This number can be compared to the total number of property crimes, roughly 6.41 million that year. Of violent crimes in 2023, aggravated assaults were the most common offenses in the United States, while homicide offenses were the least common. Law enforcement officers and crime clearance Though the violent crime rate was down in 2013, the number of law enforcement officers also fell. Between 2005 and 2009, the number of law enforcement officers in the United States rose from around 673,100 to 708,800. However, since 2009, the number of officers fell to a low of 626,900 officers in 2013. The number of law enforcement officers has since grown, reaching 720,652 in 2023. In 2023, the crime clearance rate in the U.S. was highest for murder and non-negligent manslaughter charges, with around 57.8 percent of murders being solved by investigators and a suspect being charged with the crime. Additionally, roughly 46.1 percent of aggravated assaults were cleared in that year. A statistics report on violent crime in the U.S. can be found here.

Historical dataset showing U.S. crime rate per 100K population by year from 1990 to 2021.

Crime data from years prior to the current one. The data included in this dataset has been reviewed and approved by a Milwaukee Police Department supervisor and the Milwaukee Police Department’s Records Management Division. This approval process can take a few weeks from the reported date of the crime. For preliminary crime data, please visit the Milwaukee Police Department’s Crime Maps and Statistics dashboard at https://city.milwaukee.gov/police/Information-Services/Crime-Maps-and-Statistics.

Wisconsin Incident Based Report (WIBR) Group A Offenses.

The Crime Data represents incident level data defined by Wisconsin Incident Based Reporting System (WIBRS) codes. WIBRS reporting is a crime reporting standard and can not be compared to any previous UCR report. Therefore, the Crime Data may reflect:

• Information not yet verified by further investigation
• Preliminary crime classifications that may be changed at a later date based upon further investigation
• Information that may include mechanical or human error

Neither the City of Milwaukee nor the Milwaukee Police Department guarantee (either express or implied) the accuracy, completeness, timeliness, or correct sequencing of the Crime Data. The City of Milwaukee and the Milwaukee Police Department shall have no liability for any error or omission, or for the use of, or the results obtained from the use of the Crime Data. In addition, the City of Milwaukee and the Milwaukee Police Department caution against using the Crime Data to make decisions/comparisons regarding the safety of or the amount of crime occurring in a particular area. When reviewing the Crime Data, the site user should consider that:

• The information represents only police services where a report was made and does not include other calls for police service
• The information does not reflect or certify "safe" or "unsafe" areas
• The information will sometimes reflect where the crime was reported versus where the crime occurred

The use of the Crime Data indicates the site user's unconditional acceptance of all risks associated with the use of the Crime Data.

To download XML and JSON files, click the CSV option below and click the down arrow next to the Download button in the upper right on its page. XY fields in data is in projection Wisconsin State Plane South NAD27 (WKID 32054).

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.

In the 21st century, homicide has been responsible for roughly 0.6 to 0.8 percent of all deaths in the United States. While this is higher than annual rates observed in the post-WWII era, it is significantly less than the rates seen between the mid-1960s and mid-1990s, where over one percent of all deaths in the U.S. were from homicide in most years. Crime wave of the late 20th century There are a variety of factors attributed to the crime wave of the late 20th century. Demographic factors include the arrival of the baby boomer generation into adolescence, a rise in urbanization, and a growing share of the population living in poverty. A series of economic recessions saw the prosperity of the post-war period come to an end, and many turned to crime in response.

This coincided with a rise in the illegal drug trade and drug consumption, as well as the federal government's response via the so-called "War on Drugs", which changed the dynamics of inter-city crime and law enforcement for decades to come. A rise in incarceration rates has been cited as one of the reasons for the "Great Crime Decline" of the 1990s, although many are skeptical of its long-term effectiveness.

In 2019, there were six deaths by homicide per 100,000 of the population in the United States, compared to 5.9 deaths by homicide in the previous year. This is an increase from 1950, when there were 5.1 deaths by homicide per 100,000 resident population in the United States. However, within the provided time period, the death rate for homicide in the U.S. was highest in 1980, when there were 10.4 deaths by homicide per 100,000 of the population in the United States.

Homicides in the United States

The term homicide is used when a human being is killed by another human being. Criminal homicide takes several forms, for example murder; but homicide is not always a crime, it also includes affirmative defense, insanity, self-defense or the execution of convicted criminals. In the United States, youth homicide has especially been seen as a problem of urban areas, due to poverty, limited adult supervision, involvement in drug and gang activities, and school failure. Both homicide rates and suicide rates in the U.S. among people aged 20 to 24 and teenagers aged 15 to 19 have vastly increased since 2001.

The graph illustrates the murder rate in the United States from 1985 to 2025. The x-axis represents the years, labeled with two-digit abbreviations from '85 to '25, while the y-axis shows the annual murder rate per 100,000 individuals. Throughout this 41-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.

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

Incident-based crime statistics (actual incidents, rate per 100,000 population, percentage change in rate, unfounded incidents, percent unfounded, total cleared, cleared by charge, cleared otherwise, persons charged, adults charged, youth charged / not charged), by detailed violations (violent, property, traffic, drugs, other Federal Statutes), police services in Ontario, 1998 to 2024.

This Alberta Official Statistic describes the violent crime rates for Canada and provinces for the years from 1998 to 2014. The rate is based on the incidence of violent crime per 100,000 population in each province. The Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics (CCJS), in co-operation with the policing community, collects police-reported crime statistics through the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Survey. The UCR Survey was designed to measure the incidence of crime in Canadian society and its characteristics. UCR data reflect reported crime that has been substantiated by police. Information collected by the survey includes the number of criminal incidents, the clearance status of those incidents and persons-charged information. The UCR Survey produces a continuous historical record of crime and traffic statistics reported by every police agency in Canada since 1962. In 1988, a new version of the survey (UCR3) was created, which is referred to as the "incident-based" survey. It captures microdata on characteristics of incidents, victims and accused. Data from the UCR Survey provide key information for crime analysis, resource planning and program development for the policing community. Municipal and provincial governments use the data to aid decisions about the distribution of police resources, definitions of provincial standards and for comparisons with other departments and provinces. To the federal government, the UCR survey provides information for policy and legislative development, evaluation of new legislative initiatives, and international comparisons. To the public, the UCR survey offers information on the nature and extent of police-reported crime and crime trends in Canada. As well, media, academics and researchers use these data to examine specific issues about crime.

This database adapts the Piccato, P., Hidalgo, S., & Lajous, A. (2008). Estadísticas del crimen en México: Series Históricas 1926—2008. for analysis in decades paired with Mexican National Statistics Institute Censuses (INEGI) by imputing the non-systematic absences of homicide rates with population growth rates. The database allows studying crime rates for homicide, rape, robbery, smuggling with socioeconomic data in Mexico through the second half of the XX Century.

The following datasets contain the crime rate for cities in the United States. The four datasets are separated based on population ranges.

FILE DESCRIPTION

File names: - 'crime_40 _60.csv': dataset for population ranging from 40,000 to 60,000. - 'crime_60 _100.csv': dataset for population ranging from 60,000 to 100,000. - 'crime_100 _250.csv': dataset for population ranging from 100,000 to 250,000. - 'crime_250 _plus.csv': dataset for population greater than 250,000.

COLUMN DESCRIPTION

For file: crime_40 _60.csv: - 'states': name of the state - 'cities': name of the city - 'population': population of the city - 'violent_crime': violent crime - 'murder': murder and nonnegligent manslaughter - 'rape': forcible rape - 'robbery': robbery - 'agrv_ The following datasets contain the crime rate for cities in the United States. The four datasets are separated based on population ranges.

FILE DESCRIPTION

File names: - 'crime_40 _60.csv': dataset for population ranging from 40,000 to 60,000. - 'crime_60 _100.csv': dataset for population ranging from 60,000 to 100,000. - 'crime_100 _250.csv': dataset for population ranging from 100,000 to 250,000. - 'crime_250 _plus.csv': dataset for population greater than 250,000.

COLUMN DESCRIPTION

For file: crime_40 _60.csv: - 'states': name of the state - 'cities': name of the city - 'population': population of the city - 'violent_crime': violent crime - 'murder': murder and nonnegligent manslaughter - 'rape': forcible rape - 'robbery': robbery - 'agrv_ assault': agrv_ assault - 'prop_crime': property crime - 'burglary': burglary - 'larceny': larceny theft - 'vehicle_theft': motor vehicle theft

crime_60 _100.csv: - 'states': name of the state - 'cities': name of the city - 'population': population of the city - 'violent_crime': violent crime - 'murder': murder and nonnegligent manslaughter - 'rape': forcible rape - 'robbery': robbery - 'agrv_ assault': agrv_ assault - 'prop_crime': property crime - 'burglary': burglary - 'larceny': larceny theft - 'vehicle_theft': motor vehicle theft

crime_100 _250.csv: - 'states': name of the state - 'cities': name of the city - 'population': population of the city - 'violent_crime': violent crime - 'murder': murder and nonnegligent manslaughter - 'rape': forcible rape - 'robbery': robbery - 'agrv_ assault': agrv_ assault - 'prop_crime': property crime - 'burglary': burglary - 'larceny': larceny theft - 'vehicle_theft': motor vehicle theft

crime_250 _plus.csv: - 'states': name of the state - 'cities': name of the city - 'population': population of the city - 'total_crime': total crime - 'murder': murder and nonnegligent manslaughter - 'rape': forcible rape - 'robbery': robbery - 'agrv_ assault': agrv_ assault - 'total_violent _crime': total violent crime - 'prop_crime': property crime - 'burglary': burglary - 'larceny': larceny theft - 'vehicle_theft': motor vehicle theft - 'tot_prop _crime': total property crime - 'arson': arson

Photo by David von Diemar on Unsplash

Historical dataset showing Germany crime rate per 100K population by year from 1990 to 2021.

Historical dataset showing Central America crime rate per 100K population by year from N/A to N/A.

Historical crime rates per 100,000 people, 1975 - present. In June 2017 we changed the update frequency of this dataset from annual to as-needed because sometimes there is a lag that is often 6 months after the annual date before the new data is available.

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.