FBI Data Reveals 'Most Dangerous Cities in America'

Law Street used FBI data to rank the 10 most dangerous American cities based on the number of violent crimes.

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It's that time of year when the FBI releases crime statistics for cities across the United States. The people at Law Street (via Esquire) took that data, analyzed it, and turned it into a list called the Most Dangerous Cities in America.

The list is based on occurrences of violent crimes in 2014, specifically the number of murders, rapes, robberies and aggravated assaults in cities with populations of 200,000 people or greater. 

This year's winner​ loser with the distinction of topping that list for the second year in a row is Detroit.

The city saw a small dip in violent crime from 2013, but still had 1,989 violent crimes for every 100,000 people who live there (an estimated 684,694 people). They had 44 murders for every 100,000 people, and employed one police officer for every 295 citizens. 

The rest of the top five were: 

2. Memphis, Tennessee (1,741 violent crimes per 100,000 people)

3. Oakland, California (1,685 violent crimes per 100,000 people)

4. St. Louis, Missouri: (1,679 violent crimes per 100,000 people)

5. Birmingham, Alabama (1,588 violent crimes per 100,000 people)

You can see the full top 10 with stats over at Law Street

Topping their list of the "most dangerous" cities with populations under 200,000 people, Little Rock, Arkansas, which has a population of 198,000, but 22 murders for every 100,000 people. 

The safest city in the U.S.? According to that list, it's Irvine, California, which did not see a single murder in 2014.

 

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