The U.S. violent crime rate, which is the number of rapes, robberies, severe assaults, and murders per 100,000 people each year, went up by 5% in 2020. The number of murders and aggravated assaults went up, and the number of killings went up by an amazing 29%. This made 2020 the deadliest year in the US since the mid-1990s.
Even though there were more murders than ever in a single year, the total violent crime rate in 2020 is still pretty low compared to the past. In 2020, there were 1.3 million serious crimes in the U.S. That’s 399 crimes for every 100,000 people. During the 1990s, the rate of serious crime was between 523 and 758 crimes per 100,000 people.
Of course, crime is a neighborhood issue that is affected by some many things. Because of this, violent crime rates in the U.S. can change a lot from one place to another. In some metro areas, rates of violence are much higher than the all-time highs set decades ago.
Anchorage, Alaska, is the third most dangerous metro area in the United States and the most dangerous city in the Western United States, even though the serious crime rate is going down every year by 1.9%. Anchorage had 3,576 violent crimes in 2020, which is about 1,171 crimes for every 100,000 people. This is almost three times the national violent crime rate.
Anchorage’s murder rate dropped sharply, from 34 in 2019 to 18 in 2020—a big change from the rest of the country. A police spokesman said that most murders in the metro area are caused by domestic violence and, more and more, drugs.
The FBI’s 2020 Uniform Crime Report is used to rank metro areas by the number of serious crimes they have. The 2020 FBI UCR also has more information on individual crimes. The 2019 American Community Survey from the U.S. Census Bureau gives figures of poverty rates for one year.
