America’s Criminologists’ Top 20 Unsafe Cities in America
America’s Criminologists’ Top 20 Unsafe Cities in America
Here is my list of the top twenty most unsafe cities in America.
Across the United States, cities are grappling with surging crime rates, delayed police response times, and serious shortages in law enforcement personnel. The grim statistics reveal a nationwide crisis where public safety is at risk, leaving citizens vulnerable and calling into question the efficacy of recent reforms. Major urban centers face not only the consequences of these policies but also the overwhelming demand for resources to effectively counter the rise in crime.
Here is my list of the top twenty most unsafe cities in America.
St. Louis, Missouri
Crime: High violent crime rate, aggravated assault cases, criminal vagrancy, drug gangs, migrant crime.
Challenges: 100+ police vacancies, police funding, jail funding, low arrest levels, bail reform, homicide closure rate.
Memphis, Tennessee
Crime: 54% increase in violent crime since 2019, Over 9,000 violent crimes reported, criminal vagrancy, drugs, migrant crime.
Challenges: police vacancies, police-community relations, police standards, low arrest rates, homicide closure rate.
Detroit, Michigan
Crime: 2,000+ violent crimes per 100,000 residents, property crime up by 13%, criminal vagrancy, drugs
Challenges: 40% of police response times exceed 15 minutes, police staffing, gangs, police funding, police standards, low arrests rates, homicide closure rate.
Baltimore, Maryland
Crime: Clearance rate below 50% for violent crimes, criminal vagrancy, drug, gangs, migrant crime.
Challenges: 300+ police vacancies, low arrest rates, police standards, poor prosecution, excessive supplementation of fines and fees in budget, homicide closure rate.
Oakland, California
Crime: Burglaries and car thefts up significantly, with a 50% increase in auto thefts, criminal vagrancy, drugs, migrant crime.
Challenges: Response times averaging 18+ minutes, Prop 47 Consequences, controversial bail reform, police staffing, police standards, poor prosecution, low arrest rates, homicide closure rates, excessive supplementation of fines and fees in budget.
Cleveland, Ohio
Crime: High carjacking rates, drugs, gangs, migrant crime.
Challenges: Police staffing at historic lows, police funding, homicide closure rates, low arrest rates.
New Orleans, Louisiana
Crime: Highest homicide rate per capita among major cities, drugs, gangs, migrant crime.
Challenges: Police force down 50% from needed levels, police funding, police standards, homicide closure rate, low arrest levels, excessive supplementation of fines and fees in budget.
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Crime: 40% increase in auto thefts, property crime, violent crime, drugs
Challenges: Police response times over 20 minutes, police staffing, police funding, low arrest levels.
Chicago, Illinois
Crime: Over 2,800 shootings, smash-and-grab robberies, 15% rise in overall crime, high violent crime, criminal vagrancy, drugs, gangs, migrant crime
Challenges: Cashless bail, low arrest levels, DEI, police standards, poor prosecution, homicide closure rate, excessive supplementation of fines and fees in budget, police staffing.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Crime: Record-breaking carjackings, criminal vagrancy, high robbery rates, high aggravated assault rates, drugs, gangs.
Challenges: bail reforms, poor prosecution, police staffing, homicide closure rate, jail funding, high police complaints founded (24%), low arrest rate.
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Crime: High rates of auto theft, Rising property crimes, migrant crime, criminal vagrancy, drugs, gangs
Challenges: Bail reform, homicide closure rate, police funding, jail funding, low arrest rates.
Indianapolis, Indiana
Crime: Increasing gun violence, gangs, drugs, migrant crime
Challenges: Police funding, police staffing, homicide closure rate, low arrest rates.
Washington, D.C.
Crime: Surge in carjackings, high robbery rates, criminal vagrancy, drugs, gangs, migrant crime
Challenges: Metro system crime increase, excessive supplementation of fines and fees in budget, police staffing, low arrest rates
Kansas City, Missouri
Crime: High rates of gun violence, violent crime, property crime, criminal vagrancy, migrant crime, gangs, drugs.
Challenges: Controversial bail reforms in place, jail funding, prosecution, police staffing, low arrest levels.
San Francisco, California
Crime: High-profile retail theft, car break-ins, drug-related crimes, criminal vagrancy, drugs, gangs
Challenges: Prop 47 Consequences, controversial bail reforms in place, excessive supplementation of fines and fees in budget, police staffing, jail funding
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Crime: Rising violent crime, migrant crime, gangs, drugs
Challenges: Increasing response time issues, jail funding, prosecution, DEI, police staffing, homicide closure rate.
Portland, Oregon
Crime: Significant increase in gun violence, criminal vagrancy, drugs, gangs
Challenges: Police staffing shortages, police funding, jail funding, DEI, homicide case closure rates.
Houston, Texas
Crime: High violent crime rates, growing gang activity, migrant crime
Challenges: Homicide case closure rates, police staffing, high police complaints founded (38%), low arrest rates.
Atlanta, Georgia
Crime: Violent crime surge, high-profile shootings, street racing issues, drugs, gangs, migrant crime
Challenges: Jail funding, police staffing, low arrest levels
(Tie) Los Angeles, California
Crime: Home robberies, organized retail theft, criminal vagrancy, migrant crime, drugs, gangs
Challenges: Prop 47 Consequences, police staffing, prosecution, low arrest levels, property crime, violent crime, drugs, gangs, migrant crime
Main Challenges for Law Enforcement
Police Response Times, Staffing Shortages, and Closure Rates
Police departments across many of these cities face persistent staffing issues that directly impact public safety. In Detroit, Baltimore, and Memphis, staffing levels are so low that response times have slowed, and fewer officers are available for proactive patrols. Detroit and St. Louis, for example, has struggled for years to retain officers, which stretches the force thin and delays responses to both violent and property crimes. In Baltimore, Minneapolis, and San Francisco, officer shortages have made it challenging to maintain a strong presence in high-crime neighborhoods, allowing crime to flourish unchecked. Nearly every city on this list has significantly case closure rates. As of 2022, the following cities have some of the lowest homicide clearance rates on the list:
New Orleans, LA - 35% clearance rate
Minneapolis, MN - 38% clearance rate
St. Louis, MO - 40% clearance rate
Baltimore, MD - 41% clearance rate
Chicago, IL - 42.5% clearance rate
The Homelessness Crisis (Criminal Vagrancy)
Cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle illustrate the correlation between increasing homelessness and rising crime rates. 52% of the homeless population in America is in California. Los Angeles, which has one of the largest homeless populations in the country, has seen neighborhoods transform as encampments take over public spaces. Drug addiction and mental health issues frequently intersect in these environments, which leads to increased property crimes and even violent incidents. San Francisco’s homelessness issue is exacerbated by skyrocketing housing costs, further straining social services.
Migrant Crime
Cities across America face unique challenges associated with their proximity to international borders. These cities are often sites for drug and human trafficking networks, which can bring crime and violence into otherwise low-crime areas. Aurora, CA and Springfield, OH, while generally considered safe compared to other cities on this list, faces ongoing issues related to trafficking and illegal entry, which strain local law enforcement resources.
Inadequate Police Presence and Recruitment Challenges
Across Chicago, Milwaukee, and Oakland, police departments report record low numbers of new recruits and high levels of burnout. In Chicago, police shortages have led to reduced patrols in certain areas, creating opportunities for crime to escalate unchecked. Milwaukee faces similar challenges, with many officers retiring or leaving the profession, further reducing law enforcement's preventive capabilities. These shortages erode the deterrent effect of a police presence, leaving residents vulnerable and police departments overworked.
Property Crime Rate Increases
Rising property crime rates have significantly impacted quality of life in cities like Albuquerque, Los Angelas, San Francisco, and Oakland. Albuquerque has consistently high property crime rates due to factors such as economic disparity and a lack of preventive policing resources. The three California cities has seen a sharp increase in thefts and burglaries, which many attribute to understaffing and resource shortages within the police departments, but also the consequences of Proposition 47 so that was passed in 2014 that virtually decriminalized property crimes.
Assault and Battery Increases
One of the best barometers to examine in crime statistics is the number of assault and battery cases. Cities with high violent crime rates, such as St. Louis, Birmingham, and Memphis, continue to report increased incidents of assault and battery. In St. Louis, assaults often stem from gang violence and territorial disputes, while in Birmingham and Memphis, poverty and lack of economic opportunities are cited as drivers of violent crime. These crimes further strain emergency response systems, as victims often require medical care and extended social support, increasing the financial and emotional toll on communities.
Impact of Cashless Bail Reforms
The implementation of cashless bail has generated significant controversy, especially in cities like New York, Chicago, and San Francisco. Cashless bail aims to reduce the incarceration of economically disadvantaged individuals before trial, but critics argue it allows repeat offenders back onto the streets without adequate oversight. New York, where cashless bail has been widely adopted, has seen several cases where individuals released under these reforms reoffend, raising concerns about public safety and the effectiveness of these policies.
The Problem of Crime Under-Reporting and Non-Reporting
The under-reporting and non-reporting of crime have become significant issues, distorting our understanding of real crime rates and challenging law enforcement efforts. Many factors contribute to this phenomenon, including victims' distrust in the justice system, fear of retaliation, and a perception that reporting won’t lead to meaningful action or resolution. Certain communities, particularly marginalized or immigrant groups, may also avoid reporting due to fear of deportation or further victimization. Additionally, rising instances of minor crimes being deprioritized or reclassified—often due to policy changes aimed at reducing prison populations—can discourage individuals from reporting, believing that these incidents will be ignored or under-penalized. This under-reporting creates a false narrative that crime rates are declining when, in reality, criminal activities may be rising or remaining steady. Consequently, the gap between reported crime and actual crime hinders law enforcement's ability to allocate resources effectively, leaving many communities underserved and vulnerable. Addressing this issue requires rebuilding public trust, ensuring appropriate responses to all crime levels, and implementing accurate crime-tracking mechanisms that account for unreported incidents.
The Economic Principle of Capacity Constraint in Public Safety
The economic principle at play when the volume of occurrences overwhelms the ability to handle the output is known as bottlenecking, or more broadly, it can be described as capacity constraint. In a bottleneck scenario, a system—whether it’s a production line, a service organization, or a public agency—hits a limit in its capacity to manage the workload, creating a backlog or delays in output. As the demand exceeds the system's capacity to respond, efficiency drops, and the quality of output may suffer as resources become overextended. In the context of law enforcement or public services, this principle becomes evident when there are too many incidents for the available personnel, budget, or infrastructure to handle effectively. For instance, if crime incidents rise dramatically without a proportional increase in law enforcement resources, the agency may become overwhelmed, leading to slower response times, reduced investigative quality, and an inability to address all cases. This bottleneck can reduce the overall effectiveness of the agency and lower public satisfaction and trust. Addressing such bottlenecks often requires either increasing capacity (e.g., hiring more staff, enhancing technology) or optimizing current processes to handle the workload more efficiently.
Opportunities for Improvement
America’s most dangerous cities face a public safety crisis driven by intertwined issues. While each city has unique challenges, some common threads could inform potential solutions.
Investing in Police Departments and Public Safety: Increasing funding for police recruitment and retention is critical. Addressing staffing shortages and ensuring enough officers are available for preventive measures will help restore community trust and improve response times, particularly in cities with severe understaffing, like Detroit and Baltimore. Agencies should set a key performance indicator that includes any “founded” complaints that is made public. That percentage should be if an agency has an unfounded percentage that dips below 89% (11% founded) that should be a yellow line for caution and anything below 80% (20% founded) complaints should be a red line. Additionally, each agency should be transparent and show graphs that show agency funding levels, agency staffing levels, arrest rates, and case closure rates.
Addressing Criminal Vagrancy: Cities like Los Angeles and Seattle can benefit from increased investment in mental health services, addiction recovery programs, and affordable housing. Providing alternative solutions to homelessness could alleviate some of the crime issues associated with large encampments and improve public safety for both the housed and the homeless populations. This can be accomplished through court systems being given three approaches to mandatory sentencing, which include jail time, mandatory mental health treatment and mandatory drug treatment, or a combination of all three options.
Reevaluating Bail Reform: While cashless bail aims to promote fairness, it has demonstrated unintended consequences that need addressing. A tiered system that considers the nature of the crime and individual risk could help reduce recidivism while still supporting equity within the justice system. Studies have shown that cities that have unilaterally applied cashless or zero bail policies have recidivism rates that are 10-15% higher than those that use assessment standards for bail. This can be accomplished by each county prosecutor being mandated to monitor recidivism rates with respect to bail.
Re-Application of Focus Deterrence: Focus deterrence is a vital strategy in law enforcement, aimed at reducing crime by focusing resources and consequences on high-risk offenders and specific crime hotspots. This approach is based on identifying and directly engaging individuals or groups responsible for a significant portion of crime, offering them support and incentives to avoid criminal activity while making clear that any violations will bring swift and severe penalties. Types of focused deterrence include group violence intervention, where authorities target gangs and violent groups with strict sanctions for future infractions, and drug market intervention, which focuses on breaking up street-level drug activity in specific neighborhoods. Custom notifications and call-ins—personalized messages to offenders about law enforcement’s close monitoring—also play a critical role. Through these methods, law enforcement can achieve meaningful reductions in crime by concentrating efforts on the most impactful targets, fostering safer communities without spreading resources too thinly across broad, generalized enforcement. This can be accomplished through Evidence-Based Policing measures.
Police-Parole Interagency Discipline: Enhancing the monitoring of recidivism rates and probation violations is essential for effective crime prevention and community safety. Police and probation officers can collaborate to closely track individuals on probation, ensuring they comply with conditions that are meant to deter future criminal behavior. Monitoring systems that regularly assess and analyze recidivism rates provide valuable data, helping law enforcement identify patterns and adjust strategies to prevent repeat offenses. By proactively addressing probation violations—such as missed check-ins, failure to attend mandated programs, or associating with known offenders—law enforcement can intervene before individuals re-offend or escalate their criminal activities. Strengthening these monitoring efforts not only reinforces accountability for those under probation but also deters others in the community by showing that violations carry tangible consequences. This coordinated approach between police and probation departments can ultimately reduce repeat offenses and promote long-term compliance among those re-entering society. This can be accomplished through Evidence-Based Probation measures.
Strengthening Community Engagement: Community involvement and transparency are essential in high-crime areas. Programs that facilitate resident-police cooperation, neighborhood watches, and community policing can bridge the trust gap in cities where residents feel neglected or unprotected. Law enforcement agencies must be transparent and accountable to the public with key performance indicators measured and for public dissemination.
Conclusion
The Crisis of Crime in America’s Cities In many ways, the issues facing America’s most dangerous cities are symptoms of larger social and economic struggles that require a collaborative approach across local, state, and federal levels. By addressing the root causes of crime—from migrant crime and mental health to police understaffing and judicial reform abuses—cities can create safer, more resilient communities. The solution is multifaceted, requiring targeted investment, policy reform, and active community participation to ensure that America’s urban centers become places where residents can live safely and without fear.
Methodology: Key Performance Indicators Considered In this Study
Evaluating public safety across these cities involves a multi-dimensional approach, using primary and secondary metrics that include:
Violent Crime Rate per 100,000 Residents – Homicides, assaults, armed robberies, and gun violence.
Property Crime Metrics – Burglary, car theft, and organized retail crime.
Law Enforcement Resources – Officer-to-resident ratios, vacancy rates, funding, high founded complaint percentages, and response times.
Judicial and Legislative Influences – Impact of bail reform, prosecution rates, and the prevalence of repeat offenders.
Community and Economic Indicators – Homelessness and youth crime levels.
Five Categories Researched in this Perspective
Statistical Overview
- Complete crime data from all 20 cities
- Comparative analysis
- Heat maps of crime patterns
- Response time metrics
City-Specific Updates
- Individual city reports
- Ranking changes
- Local initiatives
- Community impact
Trend Analysis
- Cross-city patterns
- Regional trends
- Demographic shifts
- Economic correlations
Policy Impact Assessment
- Legislative changes
- Reform outcomes
- Court decisions
- Implementation results
Resource Updates
- Police staffing levels
- Budget allocations
- Equipment/technology
- Training programs