Which cities in the US had the highest murder rates in 2024?
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Executive Summary
Contemporary data indicate that no single authoritative list uniformly names the same U.S. cities as the absolute “highest murder rate” in 2024; instead, different datasets and definitions produce different leaders, with St. Louis, Memphis, New Orleans, Detroit, and Baltimore frequently appearing near the top depending on the source and whether the measure is city limits, metropolitan county, or population-size cutoff [1] [2] [3]. Reconciling these accounts requires attention to source, year, population thresholds, and whether counts come from death certificates (CDC), FBI reported-crime submissions, or compiled studies that may restrict to cities above a certain population or treat midsize and small cities separately [3] [4] [2].
1. Why headlines disagree — Methodology drives the “most dangerous city” crown
Different reports use different definitions and scopes, producing conflicting top-ranked cities. The CDC’s homicide tallies, drawn from death certificates, often show larger urban counties such as Orleans (New Orleans) and Shelby (Memphis) with extremely high per‑capita homicide rates, and CDC-based summaries have listed New Orleans, Memphis, St. Louis, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. among the highest in recent years [3]. The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) data and its Crime Data Explorer rely on law‑enforcement agencies’ submitted incident reports; those datasets can yield different rankings because reporting completeness and which agencies participate vary year to year [4]. Independent studies and city‑only rankings sometimes restrict analysis to municipalities with populations over 100,000 or group by city size; those filters can elevate medium or small cities—such as St. Louis among midsize cities or East Point among extra‑small cities—to the top of their respective lists [2].
2. Multiple leaders in 2024 — St. Louis, Memphis, New Orleans, Detroit, and Baltimore all cited
Contemporary studies and summaries of 2024 data show no single uncontested leader, but a repeat pattern: St. Louis frequently ranks highest when comparing homicide rates among mid‑sized cities, with some compilations placing it at or near the top with rates exceeding 50 per 100,000 in specialized studies, while Memphis and New Orleans often top lists based on county or CDC mortality data [1] [3]. Detroit and Baltimore likewise appear consistently among the highest per‑capita homicide rates in large‑city rankings derived from law‑enforcement reports or aggregated studies; the FBI and other 2024 summaries noted that Louisville, for example, had a higher per‑capita homicide rate than Chicago and Los Angeles in one 50‑city breakdown, underscoring the geographic variability and the influence of population cutoffs [5].
3. The national trend: murders fell overall, but local spikes persisted
Nationally, reported violent crime and murders declined in 2024 according to federal summaries, with an estimated 4–15% decline in violent crime and homicides reported in 2024 over 2023 in FBI overviews and related year‑end crime reports; yet homicide rates rose in many specific urban counties and remained highly concentrated in particular cities and neighborhoods [4] [2]. This divergence—national downtrend versus local persistence—reflects that aggregate statistics can mask severe place‑based disparities: many smaller jurisdictions and particular urban centers experienced rate increases or very high baseline rates even as the national count moved downward, a pattern highlighted in CDC‑based county analyses and city‑by‑city reports [3] [2].
4. What to watch when interpreting “highest murder rate” claims
When evaluating claims about the “highest murder rate,” the most important considerations are: whether the metric is per 100,000 residents; whether it uses city limits, county, or metro areas; the population cutoff used; and the underlying data source (death certificates vs. police reports) because each yields divergent results and coverage [3] [4]. Analysts and journalists should check whether a study excludes smaller places—many very small cities or extra‑small jurisdictions can show extreme rates due to small denominators (for example, East Point among extra‑small cities) and whether the report adjusted for reporting gaps in the FBI program or used CDC mortality data for completeness [2].
5. Bottom line — nuanced answer, not a single city name
There is no single, universally accepted “murder capital” of the U.S. for 2024 because dataset choice and methodological filters change the leader: St. Louis and Memphis frequently top lists in city‑or county‑based metrics, while New Orleans and Detroit also lead in CDC and specialized compilations, and smaller jurisdictions sometimes surpass all larger cities when included [1] [3] [2]. Readers seeking a definitive ranking should consult multiple datasets—FBI Crime Data Explorer for reported incidents, CDC mortality files for death‑certificate–based homicide counts, and peer‑reviewed or transparent studies that disclose their inclusion criteria—then compare apples to apples [4] [3].