Although crime is often a major issue in public debate at the local and national level, American perception of crime rates often does not match what the statistics tell us. While violent crime has generally been declining for the past several decades, public opinion polling since the early 1990s shows that most Americans have felt that crime went up in the past year, when more often than not the opposite occurred.

Given this persistent gap between perception and reality as well as false or misleading public statements about crime, it’s particularly important to look at the long-term trends. Law Street’s interactive crime statistics dashboard provides detailed information about crime statistics in America’s largest cities going back to 1985. With it, you can visualize crime trends for any city with available data from the FBI and a population greater than 200,000 people.

The tool clearly illustrates the general downward trend in violent crime since the early 1990s. Here’s a look at the violent crime rate per 100,000 people for the United States as a whole and for all cities with a population over 250,000. As you can see in the chart below, violent crime rates tend to be noticeably higher in large cities relative to the nation as a whole and the decrease that has occurred over the past several decades was primarily concentrated in those cities as well.

When you look at several individual cities, that downward trend is pretty easy to identify. Three major cities with some of the largest percentage decrease in crime rates are New York City, Los Angeles, and Dallas, as you can see in the chart below. The 2015 violent crime rates in these three cities dropped by more than half relative to the rates at their respective peaks in the 1990s.

While looking at trends over several decades helps explain how crime rates today compare to the particularly high rates several decades ago, more recent trends are also important. While many cities continue to see their crime rates fall, others have seen modest but significant increases in recent years. This is particularly true when you look at changes in murder rates. The number of murders in large cities saw a notable increase in 2015, which for many cities may be an emerging trend. Here’s a look at a few cities that have seen their murder rates go up for multiple consecutive years.

Although the national murder rate and the rates in the cities detailed above went up in 2015–the most recent year with available data–it’s important to note that the increase did not happen everywhere. In fact, there were several large cities that saw modest decreases in their murder rates. However, the recent changes remain notable even if rates remain near multi-decade lows.

To take a closer look at these cities and to identify trends on your own, check out the new interactive dashboard or read more of Law Street’s Crime in America coverage.

Kevin Rizzo

Kevin Rizzo is the Crime in America Editor at Law Street Media. An Ohio Native, the George Washington University graduate is a founding member of the company. Contact Kevin at krizzo@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post What Do Crime Trends Look Like in America’s Largest Cities? appeared first on Law Street.

When it comes to crime statistics, violent crime tends to get most of the attention. While it’s often easy to overlook property crime because no force is involved, the FBI estimates that $14.3 billion was lost last year because of property crimes. Offenses that the FBI considers property crimes are burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson. The most expensive property crime is motor vehicle theft, which cost about $7,000 per crime on average in 2015.

According to FBI estimates, there were 707,758 motor vehicle thefts in 2015, causing more than $4.9 billion in losses. While property crime in general decreased last year, the number of motor vehicle thefts went up by 3.1 percent. Despite that increase, the number of vehicle thefts last year was lower than the number in 2011 and represents a decrease of more than 40 percent since 2006.

Because motor vehicle theft is a property crime, these numbers only include offenses where there is no force or threat of force involved. Additionally, because of the FBI’s hierarchy rule, if multiple crimes are committed in the same instance, only the most significant crime (typically if a violent crime is involved), is counted in the reported crime statistics.

The map below illustrates the rate of motor vehicle theft in states across the country.

With a rate of 475 motor vehicle thefts per 100,000 people, California has the highest rate in the nation. Vermont had the lowest rate of motor vehicle thefts, with just 28 per 100,000 people. Following Vermont are nearby Maine and New Hampshire, with 61 and 67 per 100,000 people respectively.

When you look at individual cities, four of the top 20 cities with the highest rates of motor vehicle theft are in California, as shown in the table below–starting with Oakland, California, which had a rate of 1,523 vehicle thefts per 100,000 people in 2015, the highest rate among all cities with more than 100,000 residents. In total, Oakland had 6,389 motor vehicle thefts last year.

The table below shows which cities have the highest rates of motor vehicle theft among cities with a population larger than 100,000 people.

Kevin Rizzo

Kevin Rizzo is the Crime in America Editor at Law Street Media. An Ohio Native, the George Washington University graduate is a founding member of the company. Contact Kevin at krizzo@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post What Do Motor Vehicle Theft Rates Look Like Across the U.S.? appeared first on Law Street.

When the FBI released the latest round of national crime statistics, most attention was quickly drawn to the significant rise in the number of murders. Statistics for the 2015 calendar year, released by the FBI on Monday, show that there was an estimated 10.8 percent increase in the number of murders in the United States.

Click here to read more Crime in America coverage.

That jump, as well as the current number of murders in the United States, can be interpreted in many different ways. First, an increase of more than 10 percent is the largest spike in recent history and marks an alarming change almost any way you look at it. What’s particularly troubling is that we don’t yet have a great explanation to account for why this happened.

But the other way to look at it–comparing the murder rate in 2015 to that of previous years–paints a different picture. Despite that dramatic jump, the U.S. murder rate remains near historic lows. In fact, we had fewer murders last year than we did in 2008 and last year’s murder rate, which is adjusted for population, was lower than the one in 2009 despite going up 10 percent. While the jump from 2014 to 2015 was quite large, 2014 had the lowest murder rate in over two decades.

Put simply, you can use the most recent numbers to bolster two very different arguments about crime in America. One approach that might be more helpful is to look at the way in which murder rates change between cities. In fact, change in the murder rates varied widely in America’s largest cities.

The map below details how murder rates changed in the 50 largest cities with two consecutive years of murder statistics available from the FBI. While this does not include each and every one of America’s largest cities, given that not every city’s data is reported by the FBI, it includes almost all of them. The green and red bubbles indicate positive and negative changes, respectively, and the size of the bubble indicates the size of the change. Note that the map shows the percent change in the murder rate from 2014 to 2015, not the actual rate for each city.

Scroll over each city for additional details and change the view by zooming or selecting a region in the filter below the map. To reset the map hit the home button on the top left panel.

Kevin Rizzo

Kevin Rizzo is the Crime in America Editor at Law Street Media. An Ohio Native, the George Washington University graduate is a founding member of the company. Contact Kevin at krizzo@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post How Have Murder Rates Changed in America’s Largest Cities? Here’s a Map appeared first on Law Street.

Crime across the United States has generally trended down over the years despite what you may gather every time you turn on the evening news. Not sure how your home compares? Check out the interactive crime map below, which details the latest violent crime statistics from the FBI by metro area. The darker the red, the higher the violent crime rate. All rates below are calculated per 100,000 people.

Zoom in by double-clicking on the map and click the home button on the top left to reset the view. Searching for a specific location will automatically zoom-in to that metro area. Click here to read more information about Metropolitan Statistical Areas and these rankings.

READ MORE: 2015 CRIME RANKINGS FOR THE NORTHEAST, THE MIDWEST, THE WEST, AND THE SOUTH

READ MORE: SLIDESHOW: TOP 15 MOST DANGEROUS METRO AREAS IN THE UNITED STATES

If you are on mobile, view in landscape mode for best results. If you are having trouble viewing the map click here.

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More info on metro areas:

The Office of Management and Budget began delineating Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) in the 1950s in order to provide an established level of analysis for government reports and statistics. MSAs are characterized as having an urban core with more than 50,000 people and surrounding areas that have close social and economic integration. The FBI does not provide data on all of the 388 MSAs defined by the Office of Management and Budget. Click here to see the FBI’s explanation for why all MSAs are not included. MSAs are organized by counties or their equivalent. All statistics in Law Street’s Crime in America metro rankings are presented as rates per 100,000 people, and they are taken from the FBI’s annual Crime in the United States publication section on metropolitan statistical areas. To see the FBI’s data click here.

Kevin Rizzo

Kevin Rizzo is the Crime in America Editor at Law Street Media. An Ohio Native, the George Washington University graduate is a founding member of the company. Contact Kevin at krizzo@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Crime in America 2016: Interactive Crime Map of U.S. Metro Areas appeared first on Law Street.

The data below is from January 2014–December 2014 for all cities with a population over 100,000 people.

To search for a city or state use the search box on the right. To reset your view clear the search box and hit the home button on the top left of the map.

Click here to see the Top 10 Rankings and all coverage of Crime in America 2016.

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* The figures shown in this column for the offense of rape were reported using the legacy UCR definition of rape. See here for more information.
(1) The FBI determined that the agency’s data were underreported. Consequently, those data are not included in this table.
(2) The population for the city of Mobile, Alabama, includes 55,819 inhabitants from the jurisdiction of the Mobile County Sheriff’s Department.
(3) This agency began the year submitting rape data classified according to the legacy UCR definition. However, at some point during the calendar year, the agency modified its reporting methods and began classifying and submitting rape offenses according to the revised UCR definition of rape.
(4) Because of changes in the state/local agency’s reporting practices, figures are not comparable to previous years’ data.
(5) The FBI determined that the agency did not follow national UCR Program guidelines for reporting an offense. Consequently, this figure is not included in this table.

Kevin Rizzo

Kevin Rizzo is the Crime in America Editor at Law Street Media. An Ohio Native, the George Washington University graduate is a founding member of the company. Contact Kevin at krizzo@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Interactive Map: Crime Rates Across the United States appeared first on Law Street.

As reported in Law Street’s comprehensive annual crime rankings, Crime in America 2015, violent crime across the United States continued its downward trend according to the latest figures reported by the FBI. Curious to know how your hometown stacks up against the rest of the country? Check out the interactive map below for yourself to see if your city is getting safer or more dangerous according to the latest data.

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE TOP 10 MOST DANGEROUS CITIES WITH POPULATIONS OVER 200,000.

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE TOP 10 SAFEST CITIES WITH POPULATIONS OVER 200,000.

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE SAFEST AND MOST DANGEROUS STATES.

The interactive crime map is based on the FBI’s Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Report, which was released in January and shows the changes in violent crime from January to June 2014 versus the same period in 2013 — the most recent period for which comprehensive statistics are available. Although this report does not include statistics from every law enforcement agency in the United States, it does provide a general understanding of crime trends across the country. Clicking on cities or states in the table will zoom the map to view the selection, deselecting will return the view to the full map.

If you are having trouble viewing the graphic click here.

The map details the change in violent crime for every city that was included in the FBI’s report. It is important to note that if a city does not have at least three months of comparable data in the past two years, or if it has fewer than 100,000 people, its statistics were not included in the report. For more information on the preliminary semiannual report and its major takeaways, check out our coverage here.

1 The FBI determined that the agency’s data were overreported. Consequently, those data are not included in this report.
2 The population for the city of Mobile, Alabama, includes 55,819 inhabitants within the jurisdiction of the Mobile County Sheriff’s Department.
3 Complete January through June data for 2013 are not available.
4 The FBI determined that the agency did not follow national UCR Program guidelines for reporting an offense. Consequently, these figures are not included in this report.
5 The data collection methodology for the offense of rape does not comply with national UCR Program guidelines. Consequently, the agency’s figures for rape and violent crime (of which rape is a part) are not included in this report.
6 The FBI determined that the agency’s data were underreported. Consequently, those data are not included in this report.
7 Because of changes in the local agency’s reporting practices, figures are not comparable to previous years’ data.

Kevin Rizzo

Kevin Rizzo is the Crime in America Editor at Law Street Media. An Ohio Native, the George Washington University graduate is a founding member of the company. Contact Kevin at krizzo@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Interactive Crime Map: Is Your City Getting Safer or More Dangerous? appeared first on Law Street.