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Fact check: Which US cities had the highest violent crime rates per 100,000 residents in 2024 according to the FBI UCR?
Executive Summary
The available analyses present conflicting lists of the U.S. cities with the highest violent crime rates in 2024, with some sources reporting extremely high per-100,000 figures (in the 6,000–9,000 range) and others reporting more moderate rates (around 1,100–2,500). The discrepancy stems from different data extracts and possible unit or population-base differences; the FBI national release and several city lists are cited but do not converge on a single ranked list [1] [2].
1. Explosive differences: Two camps of city-rate claims that can't both be right
The collected analyses split sharply into two camps. One camp reports very large rates for cities like Memphis (9,456.19 per 100,000) and St. Louis (7,107.62 per 100,000), a pattern found in a “List of United States cities by crime rate” analysis dated May 1, 2025 [1]. A second camp reports far lower but still elevated rates, with Memphis at 2,501.3 and Detroit at 1,781.3 in a different compilation that also attributes numbers to the FBI’s 2024 UCR data [1]. Both sets claim to reflect 2024 FBI-derived figures, but the magnitudes differ by factors of two to four, indicating a substantial methodological or reporting inconsistency across sources [1].
2. What the FBI’s national release actually provides—and what it doesn’t
The FBI’s 2024 statistics release documents over 14 million criminal offenses and gives national-level context—crime frequencies, time-between-offense metrics and an overall trend line—but the narrative release itself does not, in the provided analyses, include a definitive ranked table of the highest-violent-crime cities by per-100,000 residents [2] [3]. The FBI narrative is useful for national context—showing aggregate counts and rates—but it is not presented here as a standalone city ranking, creating an opening for third-party compilations and potential misinterpretation when they translate reported counts into per-capita rates [2] [3].
3. Third-party lists: helpful but inconsistent and possibly error-prone
Several secondary compilations purport to present city rankings derived from UCR data, yet they diverge significantly. One list reproduces a top-five that includes St. Louis, Memphis, Baltimore, Kansas City, and Detroit with very high per-100,000 rates [1]. Another list records Memphis, Detroit, Baltimore, Houston, and Nashville with much lower per-100,000 figures [1]. These differences suggest that compilers may be using different denominators (city population vs. metro area), different offense groupings, or may have calculation errors, and they underscore the caution required when relying on third-party lists instead of primary FBI tables [1].
4. Dates and provenance matter: comparing publication timing and source labels
The most recent analyses here include an FBI narrative dated August 5, 2025 and a Security.org compilation dated October 10, 2025; a May 1, 2025 city-list analysis also appears [2] [4] [1]. Timing matters because late-arriving revised agency tables or retrospective corrections can change rankings. The May 1 compilation that shows the extreme rates predates an August FBI narrative, while a later October third-party write-up echoes the lower-rate rankings—this sequence suggests either corrected interpretations or divergent methodologies emerging over time [1] [2] [4].
5. Reconciling contradictions: plausible technical explanations for divergent rates
There are several factual ways these numbers could diverge without anyone “lying”: use of different population bases (city proper vs. metropolitan statistical area), inclusion or exclusion of certain offense categories, typographical or unit-conversion errors, or combining multi-year totals into a single-year per-100,000 rate. The extraordinarily high figures (several thousand per 100,000) are mathematically possible only if a compiler used a much smaller denominator or summed multiple years; the moderate figures align more closely with customary per-100,000 reporting conventions [1]. The materials presented here do not supply the original calculation steps, so identifying the exact error requires consulting the primary FBI tables or the compilers’ spreadsheets [1].
6. Bottom line and next steps for verification that produce a reliable answer
Given the conflicting third-party lists and the FBI’s national data release that lacks a tidy city ranking in the provided excerpts, the responsible conclusion is that no single authoritative city ranking can be confirmed from these analyses alone. To resolve the discrepancy decisively, retrieve the FBI’s detailed 2024 UCR city-by-city tables and the compilers’ calculation worksheets, verify population denominators and offense definitions, and then recompute per-100,000 rates. The analyses here point to recurring city names—Memphis, St. Louis, Baltimore, Detroit, and Kansas City—but the precise per-100,000 figures differ across sources and require primary-source verification [1] [2].