The Safest Cities in the U.S.: 2026 Crime Statistics

Crime in Large Cities (Populations over 500,000)

Among the nation's largest cities, Memphis and Detroit again posted the highest overall violent crime rates in 2025, while a wave of federal intervention turned Memphis and Washington, D.C., into last year's most politically charged crime stories.

Top 3 large cities with the highest violent crime rates

Source: FBI Crime in the United States, 2025, Table 8.

Memphis, Tennessee again recorded the highest overall violent crime, murder, and aggravated assault rates among the nation's largest cities in 2025. In September 2025, President Trump cited the city's crime statistics in an executive order that created the Memphis Safe Task Force. This order led to the deployment of the Tennessee National Guard alongside the FBI, ATF, DEA, and many other federal and state agencies.

By November, an FBI agent described the arrest numbers as “eye-popping,” and federal officials later touted a 40 percent drop in serious crimes such as murder and sexual assault over the following ten months. However, the deployment also drew controversy after task force members and a National Guardsman were involved in fatal shootings within days of each other.

Detroit, Michigan ranked second among large cities in overall violent crime and third in murder, even as it posted its lowest homicide total in six decades. Detroit recorded 165 criminal homicides in 2025, down 19 percent from 2024 and the fewest since 1965.

Kansas City, Missouri posted the second-highest murder rate among large cities. Unlike most large cities, homicides rose in Kansas City in the first half of 2025 while most major police departments reported declines.

Baltimore, Maryland again led all large cities in robbery, though the rate continued to improve: robberies fell roughly 28 percent for the year, and the city recorded its fewest homicides in nearly 50 years. Washington, D.C. ranked second in robbery despite reporting some of its lowest violent crime levels in three decades. That contradiction became a national flashpoint in August 2025, when President Trump placed the city's police department under federal control and deployed 800 National Guard troops. At the time, Metropolitan Police Department data showed violent crime was down more than 25 percent for the year.

Top 3 large cities with the highest property crime rates

Source: FBI Crime in the United States, 2025, Table 8.

Portland, Oregon led all large cities in overall property crime and larceny theft, driven largely by persistent organized retail theft. Portland police conducted repeated large-scale retail theft missions throughout 2025, netting dozens of arrests and recovering thousands of dollars in stolen merchandise from big-box retailers each time.

Seattle, Washington, once again had the highest burglary rates among large cities, though there has been improvement: Seattle police reported an 18 percent drop in burglaries and an overall 18 percent reduction in crime citywide for 2025.

Crime in Medium Cities (250,000–499,999 Residents)

Among mid-sized cities, Oakland, Cleveland, and St. Louis again dominated the rankings, though all three logged some of their steepest crime declines in years. This pattern held even as newcomer Wichita, Kansas climbed the list.

Top 3 medium cities with the highest violent crime rates

Source: FBI Crime in the United States, 2025, Table 8.

Oakland, California led all medium-sized cities in overall violent crime, aggravated assault, and robbery for a second straight year. Yet 2025 was also Oakland's best year for public safety in over a decade: homicides fell 22 percent, and the city's overall violent crime rate dropped 25 percent, which Mayor Barbara Lee credited to the revived Ceasefire violence-intervention strategy.

Cleveland, Ohio ranked second in overall violent crime, murder, rape, and robbery. Despite its high rank, crime fell sharply here too: homicides dropped nearly 12 percent in 2025, continuing a decline from the pandemic-era spike, alongside double-digit drops in rape and robbery.

St. Louis, Missouri had the highest murder rate among medium-sized cities, but its 139 homicides were the city's fewest in roughly 20 years. Mayor Cara Spencer attributed this partly to a homicide clearance rate well above the national average.

Wichita, Kansas was a new entrant to the rankings, leading medium-sized cities in aggravated assault and posting the third-highest overall property crime rate. Overall crime in Wichita fell 12 percent in 2025, but murders ticked up for a second straight year, driven largely by non-firearm homicides.

Anchorage, Alaska again posted the highest rape rate among medium-sized cities, a long-standing pattern tied to the state's remote geography and stretched law enforcement resources. Thankfully, however, Anchorage's reported rape count actually declined in 2025.

Top 3 medium cities with the highest property crime rates

Source: FBI Crime in the United States, 2025, Table 8.

Oakland topped the property crime list, too. It led medium-sized cities in overall property crime, larceny theft, and motor vehicle theft, even as commercial burglaries fell nearly 50 percent and vehicle thefts dropped almost 40 percent for the year. St. Louis continued to appear near the top of nearly every list, while Cleveland led in burglary.

Across the nine categories tracked, Cleveland, Oakland, and St. Louis each ranked among the top three medium-sized cities in six of them, an unusually broad footprint across the board for three cities under 500,000 people.

Crime in Small Cities (100,000–249,999 Residents)

Small cities with the highest violent crime rates in 2025 tended to share risk factors like economic disinvestment, lack of policing resources, and social fragmentation. But 2025 also produced one of the year's most alarming mass-casualty shootings, in a small Alabama capital far from the nation's biggest metros.

Top 3 small cities with the highest violent crime rates

Source: FBI Crime in the United States, 2025, Table 8.

Little Rock, Arkansas led small cities in overall violent crime and aggravated assault, and was a notable outlier nationally. A 40-city study from the Council on Criminal Justice found homicide rates fell in most major U.S. cities in 2025, but Little Rock's homicide rate rose 16 percent. Police Chief Heath Helton says addressing homicide is one of law enforcement's most difficult challenges.

Birmingham, Alabama had the highest murder rate among small cities, despite a dramatic improvement in homicides. Homicides fell more than 50 percent in the first half of 2025 compared to the year before. Overall, violent crime still edged up, driven by a nearly 10 percent rise in aggravated assault.

Montgomery, Alabama ranked second among small cities in murder after ending 2025 with 61 homicides, unchanged from the year before. The city drew national attention in October 2025 when a shootout between two groups following a football game left two people dead and 12 others injured in downtown Montgomery. This was one of the largest mass-casualty shootings of the year.

Salt Lake City, Utah had the highest rate of rape among small cities in 2025. Police Chief Brian Redd attributed the roughly 20 percent rise in reported rapes partly to increased reporting among the city's homeless population. He said that people experiencing homelessness are frequent targets for sexual exploitation and assault, even as homicides and robberies both declined for the year.

Top 3 small cities with the highest property crime rates

Source: FBI Crime in the United States, 2025, Table 8.

Among small cities, Salt Lake City had the highest overall property crime and larceny theft rates. Salt Lake City launched a new public safety plan at the start of 2025, and the overall crime index fell to an eight-year low. Despite the progress, residential burglaries still climbed.

Birmingham's property crime rates followed a similar pattern to its violent crime rates: theft climbed nearly 14 percent in the first half of 2025, while burglary and auto theft remained roughly flat. Lafayette, Louisiana led small cities in burglary and ranked second in aggravated assault, while Dayton, Ohio topped the motor vehicle theft rankings.

Cities With the Lowest and Highest Crime Rates in Every State

The national rankings above compare cities within similar population groups. The table below takes a different approach, identifying the cities or reporting jurisdictions with the lowest and highest violent and property crime rates in each state.

To reduce the volatility that can occur in very small communities, we included only places with at least 10,000 residents, and crime rates represent reported offenses per 100,000 residents.

Source: FBI Crime in the United States, 2025, Table 8.
* Incomplete data submitted for Florida and North Dakota.

Our Data

This project analyzed the FBI's Crime in the United States (CIUS) estimates from 2025, the latest year available. In particular, we examined Table 8, Offenses Known to Law Enforcement, and Table 1 for the national trend figures. The data used in creating these tables were drawn from city and town law enforcement agencies that submitted 12 months of complete offense data for the year. Incomplete data was submitted for Florida and North Dakota.

Only cities with populations greater than 10,000 were eligible for the rankings. This threshold was applied before cities were ranked and was intended to reduce the extreme rate fluctuations that can occur when a small number of offenses are divided by a very small population.

To calculate the crime rates in each city, we divided the number of crimes reported by local law enforcement agencies by the population of the cities those agencies serve, then multiplied by 100,000. As with any single year of city-level data, participation and reporting completeness vary by agency, and rates for smaller cities and towns can be more volatile, since a handful of incidents can substantially swing a per-capita rate.

The findings are descriptive. Differences between jurisdictions may reflect factors such as reporting practices, law-enforcement participation, population estimates, geographic boundaries, and year-to-year variation in recorded offenses. Towns or cities with zero reported crimes may have had crimes that went unreported.