United States cities by crime rate

2006 crime rates for cities with 1990 populations greater than 250,000

The FBI, on its web site, recommends against using its data as a ranking for a variety of reasons and does not rank the crime rates for cities. [ [http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/word.htm FBI] ] In November 2007, the executive board of the American Society of Criminology (ASC) approved a resolution opposing the development of city crime rankings from FBI Uniform Crime Reports (UCRs). The resolution states the rankings "represent an irresponsible misuse of the data and do groundless harm to many communities" and "work against a key goal of our society, which is a better understanding of crime-related issues by both scientists and the public". [http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/11-16-2007/0004707515&EDATE= Criminologists Condemn City crime rankings] (November 16, 2008)."PRNewswire". Retrieved on January 13, 2008.] The following table (initially sorted on the basis of reported murders in 2006) is based on Federal Bureau of Investigation Uniform Crime Reports statistics that initially became available in September 2007. The numbers are [http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2006/index.html FBI 2006 statistic site] and is downloadable in [http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2006/data/documents/06tbl08.xls Excel format] . The population numbers are based on U.S. Census estimates for the year end. The number of murders includes nonnegligent manslaughter. This list is based on the reporting agency. In most cases the city and the reporting agency are identical. However, in some cases such as Charlotte, Honolulu and Las Vegas, the reporting agency as more than one city.

It is also important to note that crime "rates" are affected by the size of the central municipality - they will generally appear much lower in larger, newer cities (particularly in the Western United States) that have been able to annex larger amounts of suburban and rural areas at the fringe. In older regions of the United States, particularly in the Northeast, many cities had their boundaries set in the 1700s, and have since grown much larger than that. In such places, the area considered the central "municipality" may only consist of the central CBD/core with older housing stock and a higher population density (particularly with daytime CBD workers who are not counted as residents) and therefore appear to have a higher crime "rate" even though in reality, they often have much less crime per capita than core CBDs/cities that have annexed larger amounts of surrounding land as part of their municipality.

Murder is the only statistic that all agencies are required to report. Consequently some agencies particularly in Illinois do not report all the crimes. If components are missing the total is adjusted to "0."

Rates are based on cases per 100,000 for all of calendar 2006.

Notes