What cities in the us have high crime rates

1. Cities that repeatedly show high violent‑crime and homicide rates

St. Louis, Detroit, Baltimore and Memphis are named across several 2025 compilations as among the highest in violent crime or homicide rates, with St. Louis often cited as the city with the nation’s highest murder rate among medium‑sized cities and Detroit and Baltimore regularly appearing near the top of “most dangerous” lists ^{[1] [6] [2]}. Other cities that surface in rankings and reporting for elevated violent‑crime metrics include Birmingham, New Orleans and certain neighborhoods in Washington, D.C., with variations by the measure used (homicide vs. overall violent crime vs. property crime) and by population cutoffs ^{[7] [2] [8]}.

2. Why different lists name different cities — methodology matters

Rankings differ because some reporters and sites use raw counts submitted to the FBI, others use rates per 100,000 residents, and some blend crime with economic or quality‑of‑life metrics; U.S. News, WalletHub and private data sites each apply distinct formulas, producing different top‑10 lists ^{[9] [10]}. Criminal‑justice researchers and the FBI itself warn that simple city rankings can mislead because policing practices, reporting completeness, jurisdictional boundaries and population size alter comparisons, and professional groups advise caution about using UCR tables to “rank” cities ^[5].

3. The broader trend: many cities saw declines in 2024–mid‑2025, but pockets of high violence persist

Nationally, aggregated measures of violent crime and homicides fell in 2025 according to multiple trackers — Council on Criminal Justice found homicide and other violent crimes below pre‑pandemic levels in a sample of cities, and journalists reported large year‑over‑year drops in 2025 counts — yet those improvements are uneven, leaving specific cities and neighborhoods still bearing disproportionately high rates ^{[3] [4] [2]}. Axios’ analysis of FBI data showed that many of the cities with the highest homicide rates sit in states governed by both parties, underscoring that political labeling obscures local structural drivers ^[11].

4. What drives persistently high rates — and what the data cannot tell fully

Reporting and research attribute elevated urban violence to concentrated poverty, unemployment, underfunded services, population loss and long‑running structural disinvestment — factors cited in coverage of Detroit, Memphis and Birmingham — but public datasets and third‑party lists cannot capture the full causal chain or local interventions that may be reducing harm on the ground ^{[12] [2]}. Multiple sources also note data limitations: some drug‑crime trends reflect arrest practices rather than underlying behavior, and small jurisdictions with tiny populations can produce exaggerated per‑capita rates, skewing headline lists ^{[3] [5]}.

5. How to read the “most dangerous” label and what that implies for policymakers

Labels like “most dangerous” simplify complex, place‑based problems and can hurt economic prospects, which is why experts urge using detailed, disaggregated measures (homicide by neighborhood, clearance rates, non‑police indicators) when targeting resources; several mid‑2025 reports show promising reductions in homicides and auto thefts in some troubled cities, illustrating that interventions and resourcing matter ^{[2] [3]}. The public record from 2024–mid‑2025 supports naming a consistent set of cities with high violent‑crime or homicide rates (St. Louis, Detroit, Baltimore, Memphis, Birmingham, New Orleans and select others), while also emphasizing that rankings are imperfect tools for diagnosing or solving urban violence ^{[1] [6] [7] [5]}.