List of U.S. states and territories by intentional homicide rate



This is a list of U.S. states and territories by intentional homicide rate. It is typically expressed in units of deaths per 100,000 individuals per year; a homicide rate of 4 in a population of 100,000 would mean 4 murders a year, or 0.004% out of the total. The data is from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The reasons for the different results can be confusing. From the Reason Foundation: "While the FBI data relies on reports by law enforcement agencies, the CDC data is derived from coroners’ reports, encompassing non-criminal homicides such as cases of self-defense. Consequently, the CDC mortality data shows a slightly higher number of homicides annually compared to the FBI data." The agency quotes below make more sense in light of this. The CDC reports all homicides, and does not indicate whether it was justified or self-defense. To a coroner a homicide is a homicide, regardless of the reason.

FBI: "The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program defines murder and nonnegligent manslaughter as the willful (nonnegligent) killing of one human being by another. The classification of this offense is based solely on police investigation as opposed to the determination of a court, medical examiner, coroner, jury, or other judicial body. The UCR Program does not include the following situations in this offense classification: deaths caused by negligence, suicide, or accident; justifiable homicides; and attempts to murder or assaults to murder, which are classified as aggravated assaults."

CDC: "Homicide – injuries inflicted by another person with intent to injure or kill, by any means. Excludes injuries due to legal intervention and operations of war. Justifiable homicide is not identified in WISQARS."

Homicide rates by year. FBI
Note: The location links in this table, as in all the tables below, are "Crime in LOCATION" links, except for Maine.

The following list shows homicide rates for the most recent five years. Data are from the FBI.

Homicide rates by type. CDC
The following list shows homicide rates by mechanism, for types where total deaths exceeded 100. Data are from the CDC and average the years 2018 to 2021. Blank values indicate that the underlying homicide count was between 1 and 9, and was suppresed. Excludes unspecified or unclassified data types, but the "Total" includes all deaths including suppressed, unspecified and/or unclassified data.

Homicide rates by decade. FBI
The following list shows homicide rates by decade, averaging the rates for each year. Data are from the FBI. Data for the 2020s are for 2020 to 2022.

Homicide totals by year. FBI
The following list shows homicide totals for the most recent five years. Data are from the FBI.