25 Most Dangerous Cities in America

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15. San Bernardino, California
> 2017 Violent crime rate: 1,291 per 100,000
> 2017 Homicides: 34
> Poverty rate: 32.3%
> Unemployment rate: 6.3%

San Bernardino has had a number of police force cutbacks in recent years, related to the city’s ongoing financial troubles. These might help explain the city’s ongoing struggles with rampant violent crime. There were 1,291 reported murders, rapes, robberies and aggravated assaults in the California city in 2017 per 100,000 residents, 15th highest among major U.S. cities.

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14. Oakland, California
> 2017 Violent crime rate: 1,299 per 100,000
> 2017 Homicides: 69
> Poverty rate: 20.0%
> Unemployment rate: 4.2%

Violent crime has plummeted in the last five years in the San Francisco Bay city of Oakland, and that’s very good news for a place that has experienced many homicides, rapes, and aggravated assaults. The crime rate skyrocketed around the recession, then fell, only to go up again in 2012, according to the SFGate. But it has been declining since then. Last year, there were just under 1,300 violent crimes reported per 100,000 residents.

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13. Indianapolis, Indiana
> 2017 Violent crime rate: 1,334 per 100,000
> 2017 Homicides: 156
> Poverty rate: 20.9%
> Unemployment rate: 3.6%

Indianapolis’ residents lived through their deadliest year in 2017, according to Fox 59. The station reported that as of Dec. 28, 2017, 156 homicides were reported in Indiana’s capital city. The city’s violent crime rate in 2017 is 1,334 crimes per 100,000 people, according to the FBI.

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12. Springfield, Missouri
> 2017 Violent crime rate: 1,339 per 100,000
> 2017 Homicides: 14
> Poverty rate: 25.9%
> Unemployment rate: 3.2%

The homicide rate in Springfield, Missouri, nearly doubled from 2016 to 2017, jumping from 4.8 per 100,000 residents to 8.3 per 100,000. Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter represent a relatively small share of overall violent crime, and Springfield’s violent crime rate remained effectively unchanged between 2016 and 2017. However, Springfield’s violent crime rate of 1,339 incidents per 100,000 people is still one of the worst rates among U.S. cities. Springfield also has the unfortunate distinction of having the highest rate of reported incidents of rape in the country, at 209 per 100,000 people compared to a national rate of 42 per 100,000.

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11. Albuquerque, New Mexico
> 2017 Violent crime rate: 1,369 per 100,000
> 2017 Homicides: 70
> Poverty rate: 18.9%
> Unemployment rate: 5.5%

As of 2016, Albuquerque, the largest in New Mexico, already had one of the worst violent crime rates in the country, at 1,112 incidents of homicide, rape, assault, and robbery per 100,000 residents. However, in 2017, that rate rose by an alarming 23% to 1,369 violent crimes per 100,000 people in 2017s. At the center of the city’s increase in robberies is the number of robberies, which rose from under 2,000 in 2016 to 2,930 incidents in 2017. According to the Albuquerque Journal, Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller the uptick “unacceptably high.”