After the World War II, until early 1990s crime rates in the US were increasing drastically. There was a certain decrease in crime numbers since 1990s to 2014-15.
FBI reports show that…
In the last two years FBI reported that crime rates started to increase again.
The Justice Department said that the 3.4% increase in the US violent crime rate between 2015 and 2016 was the largest single-year increase in the last 25 years.
Unfortunately, the nationwide homicide rate increased more than 20% from 2014 to 2016.
Despite the latest crime rates are lower than it is highest peak in early 1990s the Trump administration announced that new criminal justice policies were needed.
Highest Homicide Rates
Louisiana is the state with the highest homicide rate at 11.8% in 2016. When we look at all the crime statistics from 1996 until 2016, Louisina is the state with the highest homicide rate of the past 20 years.
The homicide rate, which was 17.5% in Louisiana in 1996, showed a steady decline until 2005, but after 2005 it rallied at a slow pace.
The homicide rate in 1996 was highest in the four states after Lousiana; Nevada with a rate of 13.7%, Maryland with a rate of 11.6%, New Mexico with a rate of 11.5% and Mississippi with a rate of 11.1%.
In Nevada and Maryland, homicide rates showed a sharp rise in 2005, whlie it declined between 1996 and 2005. It is observed that this decline is continuing between 2005 and 2014, but there is a slight increase in these two states in 2014 and 2016.
Looking at New Mexico from 1996 to 2016, homicide rates have been steadily declining.
Top five states that have most homicide rates in 2016
When we look at 5 states with the highest rate of homicide crime in 2016, we see a different picture than in 1996.
Although Louisina was still at the top of the listen; Homicide rates in Missouri, Alabama and Illinois seem to have risen surprisingly. In 1996, Maryland was among the five states with the highest homicide rate, and by 2016, it was at the top of the list with a homicide rate of 8%.
In Alabama and Illinois states, homicide rates were 5.7% and 5.5% in 2010, surprisingly rising to 8.4% and 8.2% in 2016, respectively.