Methodology

To determine the cities where the aggravated assault rate is rising fastest, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the change in the number of aggravated assaults per 100,000 people from the FBI’s 2019 and 2020 Uniform Crime Reports. Crime rates were calculated using population figures provided by the FBI in the 2020 and 2019 UCR.

Limited data was available in the 2020 UCR for areas in Alabama, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Illinois, though cities in these states were not excluded from analysis. Because some state and local agencies changed reporting practices between 2019 and 2020, the figures are not comparable, and the areas were excluded.

To concentrate on urban areas, we excluded places with fewer than 25,000 people based on five-year estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2019 American Community Survey.