Original data research from PlainCrime. Every page derives at least one statistic from the portal database, cites primary sources inline, and documents its methodology and limits.
What this research covers
PlainCrime research analyzes an FBI UCR extract covering 8,986 cities, 2,422 counties, and 19,585 agencies across 51 states and DC (latest city-crime year 2024).
Studies below answer one trend, coverage, or methods question each from the live UCR mirror; they are descriptive crime statistics, not safety advice.
Each study below is computed from our own copy of the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting database, not summarized from press coverage. We run the query, show the numbers, name the data year, and document what the figures cannot tell you. Where a finding turns on a methodology shift, such as the 2021 move to NIBRS, we explain how it changes year-over-year comparability rather than glossing over it.
A decade of state-level FBI UCR data shows Vermont's violent-crime rate up 121.9% while Florida's fell 54.1%, the widest 2014-2024 movement in either direction. Decade-over-decade movers analyzed across all 50 states plus DC.
PlainCrime ingests the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting 2024 release: 8986 cities, 2406 counties, 51 states and 19585 law-enforcement agencies, a complete per-capita crime dataset for every US jurisdiction that submitted data.
FBI UCR data aggregated across four U.S. Census regions shows the South leads in violent crime while property crime is more evenly distributed, with regional rates compared to the national average.
Analysis of FBI UCR data across thousands of U.S. cities shows larger cities have higher violent crime rates per capita, while property crime rates are more evenly distributed across population tiers.
The FBI's 2021 transition from SRS to NIBRS changed how crime data is collected, affecting year-over-year comparability, agency participation rates, and how crime trends should be interpreted.
How the FBI calculates crime rates per 100,000 residents, why population denominators matter for comparing cities of different sizes, and common pitfalls in interpreting per capita crime statistics.
The FBI warns against using crime statistics for simplistic rankings. Understanding the limitations of UCR data is essential for responsible data interpretation and meaningful cross-jurisdictional comparison.
Download the FBI UCR city-crime extract cited on this page: plaincrime-city-crime.csv (FBI Uniform Crime Reporting · CC0).
Every figure on PlainCrime is rendered directly from FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) source data, no number is typed in by an editor. This page draws directly on FBI Uniform Crime Reporting source data, no figure is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.