Arizona: The Best and Worst Cities for Crime

South Tucson ranked 10th among all American cities for its high property crime rates.
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Derek Prall
July 22, 2024 Derek Prall Derek Prall , Home Security Expert | July 22, 2024
Statewide Crime Trends in Arizona Property Crime in Arizona Violent Crime in Arizona

Since crime is a local issue, it’s important to examine how common it is in some cities in Arizona. Among Arizona’s biggest cities, including Phoenix, Tempe, and Mesa, crime is much more common than in the state as a whole.

Outside the bigger cities, some communities have even higher rates. We’ve already addressed South Tucson’s high crime rates, but it has some unfortunate company in cities such as Globe, Page, and Miami.

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Notably, though, most of Arizona’s crime isn’t coming from its largest cities, including Phoenix, which is the fifth-largest city in the country (and, to be fair, does have an above-average violent crime rate). Rather, for both property crime and violent crime, South Tucson, a 1.2-square-mile enclave of Tucson, has the state’s highest property crime rate. The city ranks 10th nationally for property crime, according to the FBI data we analyzed, and 15th for violent crime among more than 7,000 communities.

Property Crime in Arizona

When determining property crime rates in Arizona, we looked at larceny-theft, burglary, and motor vehicle theft incidents.

  • Arizona’s total property crime rate per 100,000 people is 2,058, which is slightly over the overall U.S. rate of 1,954 per 100,000. The state ranks 16th among all 50 states for property crime.
  • Larceny continues to be the most common property crime in Arizona — as it is everywhere else in the country — with 1,542 incidents per 100,000 people:

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Violent Crime in Arizona

Violent crimes include murder, non-negligent manslaughter, aggravated assault, rape, and robbery.

  • Arizona’s violent crime rate is 432 per 100,000 people, compared to the overall U.S. rate of 381 per 100,000. That’s the 13th-highest in the country.
  • The state is just outside the top 10 for violent crimes, but it ranks closer to the middle among its regional neighbors. Both neighboring New Mexico and faraway Alaska have much higher rates.
  • As in every other state, aggravated assault is Arizona’s most common type of violent crime. 

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Our Data

Our data comes from comprehensive reporting compiled by the FBI and accessed via the Crime Data Explorer website. Property and violent crime state figures were drawn from Table 5 of the 2022 Crime in the U.S. Report. Metropolitan figures were found in Table 6, Crime in the U.S. by Metropolitan Statistical Area. City-level figures were drawn from Table 8, Offenses Known to Law Enforcement by State by City. The population figures in that table are U.S. Census Bureau provisional estimates as of July 1, 2020.

Limitations: According to the FBI, the data in the publication tables may differ from those released on the Explorer Pages of the CDE. These variations are due to the difference in methodologies between the publication tables and data displayed on the CDE. Please note that crime statistics are not the sole measure of a city’s safety.

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