2023 Crime Statistics and Local Interactive Charts

Written By: Security.org Team | Published: April 18, 2023

The first step to keeping yourself and your family safe is knowing which threats are most likely to impact you. Thanks to modern data analysis, we now have access to a wealth of databases that can give us exactly that kind of information.

The FBI releases national crime data each year, detailing a range of criminal offenses from larceny to homicide. We took this dataset and turned it into an interactive tool for consumers, policymakers, and concerned citizens to better understand how crime impacts their local communities.

After all, safety is paramount. And with these interactive tools, we can finally keep a finger on the pulse of various threats.

Key Takeaways

• Simple assault is the most prevalent crime committed against individual Americans, making up 18 percent of crimes. After simple assault, property destruction or vandalism was the next most common crime against individuals.
• The most likely location for a crime is within a victim’s home. More than half of crimes against individuals happened in their homes.
• Men and women experienced similar overall crime rates, but women were far more likely to be targeted for sex crimes and kidnappings. Men were more likely to be victims of homicide and car theft compared to women.
• Racial inequalities persist within crime victimization, most notably for Black Americans. They were seven times more likely to be homicide victims than whites. Native Americans were also two times more likely to be homicide victims than white Americans.
• Assault offenses were most common for Americans until they reached their 50s. In the older years, larceny theft became the primary threat.

Those trends can help average Americans better understand the safety threats they are facing. Armed with that information, we can better prepare a safety strategy. 

The Most Common Crimes in Your State

National statistics can give us a general overview of crime in the United States, but if you’re looking to improve your safety and security strategy, knowing which crimes are most prevalent in your state will prove more useful.

Thankfully, the data released from the FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) allows a deeper exploration of crime statistics than tools previously used by the FBI, such as the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR). Because of that, we were able to look deeper into the offenses occurring most commonly in each state and break them out by demographics. For definitions of each type of crime, consult the FBI’s offense list.

The nation’s most common crime (simple assault) was also the most common in at least 37 states. The definition of this crime differs from state to state, ranging from threatening violence against another person to unwanted physical contact. Usually, simple assault is a misdemeanor and results in little to no physical harm. For a more profound portrait of the geographical diversity of crimes, we assessed which crimes were most widespread aside from simple assault.

Excluding simple assault, property destruction was the most common crime against individuals in 25 states, larceny led the way in 18, theft from motor vehicles was most common in five states, and burglary was the most frequent offense against individuals in Oklahoma.

To find which crime (aside from simple assault) is most common where you live, use our interactive map above. You can start by clicking on your state to find its most frequent crime, but supplying your sex, age, race, and ethnicity will display the top offense against people in your demographic group.

Remember that these numbers do not fully indicate the probability that a crime will happen to you; they reflect which offenses are reported most often by those in your demographic who are victims of crime. Many crimes today, such as sexual assault, are vastly underreported.

Big Picture: National Takeaways on Crime

Nationwide, offenses in the assault and theft category are most often committed against individuals, followed by the destruction of property.

National criminal statistics generally focus on the most violent offenses. Overall, violent crime rates dipped slightly from 2020 to 2021, with increased murders and rapes offset by a decrease in robberies. Thankfully, those crimes aren’t the most prevalent in the U.S. Here are the most common crimes committed against individuals in America:

Those top three crimes are the same for both males and females. Simple assault was also the most common crime against each age group up to age 55. Those 56 years old and older were more likely to be victims of larceny theft.

In addition to which crimes happen to whom, the NIBRS also keeps track of where crimes are committed. According to the data, the most common locations where crimes against individuals happen were:

1. Victims’ residences (56 percent of all crimes happen here)
2. Highways, roads, alleys, streets, or sidewalks (10 percent)
3. Parking lots and garages (10 percent)

Statistics alone shouldn’t sour the notion of one’s security at home sweet home. After all, this is where Americans spend most of their time.

The data also revealed the relationships between victims and offenders. True crime fans might believe that significant others are most often at fault, but strangers are to blame slightly more often than former romantic partners.

Victim Demographics: Takeaways and Trends

Working backward from demographic identifiers, the NIBRS system reveals which crimes are reported most often against subsets of the American population. The results paint a stark — and sometimes startling — portrait of disproportionate victimization nationwide.

Gender differences

Men and women experience crime at roughly the same rate nationwide (50.5 percent of reported crimes were against women, and 49.5 percent were against men). Yet the nature of an offense differs dramatically by the victim’s sex.

This scatter chart graphically depicts relative gaps between male and female victims across various crimes.

Zooming in on the numbers magnifies some of the most glaring disparities. As mentioned earlier, the data show that compared to males, females are:

• 7 times more likely to be victims of sex offenses
• 6 times more likely to be victims of human trafficking
• 3 times more likely to be kidnapped

As men are responsible for nearly 3 in 4 crimes in America, and most are heterosexual, women overwhelmingly tend to be the targets of sexual and imprisonment offenses.

Some crimes were much more likely to happen to male victims. Compared to women, men are:

• 3 times more likely to be homicide victims
• 2 times more likely to be victims of extortion or blackmail
• Nearly 2 times more likely to be victims of motor vehicle theft

Since more vehicles are owned and registered by men, it makes sense that they’d report more motor vehicle thefts. Additionally, since males are more likely to engage in high-risk and gang-related behaviors, it makes sense that they comprise more homicide victims.

Race and ethnicity

Using the NIBRS’ cross-sectioning tools, we uncovered possible racial inequities underlying American crime. Statistics show that white populations and Asian Americans experience fewer crimes. Conversely, Black Americans are most often victimized, especially by violent crimes.

While that doesn’t paint the full picture, the simple fact according to NIBRS data is that people of color – including Native Americans – experience higher victimization rates. The graph below visually represents victimization rates across the racial and ethnic spectrum in the U.S.

Analysis of NIBRS data reveals that compared to white Americans, Black Americans are:

• 6 times more likely to be homicide victims
• 3 times more likely to be robbery victims
• 3 times more likely to be assault victims
• 2 times more likely to be victims of human trafficking, arson, kidnapping, and destruction of property

Compared to white Americans, Native Americans and Alaskans are:

• 2X more likely to be homicide victims
• 2X more likely to be victims of human trafficking
• 2X more likely to be kidnapped

Age

Age is our most fluid identifying factor that relentlessly increases for everyone, no matter how much we wish it wouldn’t! As our age changes, so do the crimes most likely to impact us.

Plotting the age groups of victims on a curve chart demonstrates how crime risk varies over a lifetime. We found that assaults are the most common crime Americans experience until their 50s. At this point, larceny becomes the primary threat.

Overall, Americans are most likely to become crime victims between the ages of 18 and 35. You can analyze each offense’s path through life using the drop-down menu on the interactive graph above.

Conclusion

TV and movies often create worlds where number-crunching computers instantly solve crimes or predict offenses before they ever occur. In the real world, some people believe big data, artificial intelligence, and ubiquitous algorithms nudge us ever closer to that reality, but that isn’t the NIBRS’ goal.

The FBI’s new NIBRS database seeks to assemble a comprehensive picture of American crime to assess and address the nation’s problems. Officially adopted in 2021, the system hasn’t yet reached its potential. A lack of compliance from local agencies prevents comprehensive analysis and may generate misleading conclusions.

Nevertheless, the information compiled can fuel insightful findings. Patterns reveal where crimes are occurring most common and spotlight the suffering in certain parts of society. Dissecting the data also empowers individuals with superior knowledge of the dangers around them.

This information shouldn’t stoke fear but heighten awareness and target solutions. As NIBRS compliance grows, future security indices will be even more helpful.

Our Data and Methods

The data for this report comes from the FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) from 2020 and the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS) 2016-2020 five-year estimate.

The FBI has published crime statistics for nearly a century, collecting logs from local agencies and compiling them into national reports. Improved methodology and technology have continuously enabled deeper analysis, culminating in the modern NIBRS.

The NIBRS collects crime statistics at a granular level, categorizing incidents from across the country by offense, geographic location, victim demographics, and perpetrator status (when known). Armed with this information, citizens can better assess relevant threats to their safety.

After a transition period, the NIBRS became the national standard for law enforcement crime data reporting in January 2021. The new system permits a highly detailed examination of American crime statistics, though participation is not yet universal. For the 2020 report, the NIBRS processed almost 9 million criminal offenses submitted by more than 9,990 law enforcement agencies, creating a robust statistical database from which the following information was drawn. The data cover about 53 percent of the total population. Notable missing jurisdictions include much of California, all of Florida, and the New York Police Department.

We limited our analysis to crimes committed against individual people. NIBRS data about the reported offenses in each state was matched to every reported victim involved in those offenses and then analyzed. That data was then cross-referenced with the estimates given by the ACS to determine the crime rates. In the map visualization, we excluded the crime of simple assault to explore a broader range of common crimes committed against individuals.