Which Regions Have The Most Crime? Are Crime Levels High Right Now?

This isn't new, but is worth recalling. California, for example, is in the middle of the pack.

Which states have the lowest and highest crime rates?

The Northeast is the region with the lowest crime rates. The property crime rate in the Northeast was 34% lower than in the rest of the country, and the violent crime rate was 26% lower than in other states.

Four of the bottom five states by property crime rate in 2020 were in the Northeast, as well as all five of the lowest states by violent crime rate. New Hampshire and New Jersey were in the bottom five states for both property and violent crime.

States in the South and West had the highest crime rates in 2020. Washington, DC, which is in the South, and New Mexico, which is in the West, were in the top five states for both property and violent crimes.

The Census Bureau defines more specific areas within each region, called districts. The West South Central District – part of the South region and composed of Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas – had the highest crime rates of any district. Both property crime and violent crime were 22% higher in these states than the national average.

Washington, DC had the highest property crime rate in 2020, at 3,493 crimes per 100,000 residents. This was 21% higher than Louisiana, the state with the next-highest property crime rate. Massachusetts had the lowest property crime rate, at 1,053 crimes per 100,000 residents. 

Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation.

From USA Facts. 

State crime rates are heavily driven by property crime and by the lowest level violent crimes that are considered in the index, since these crimes occur much more often than more serious violent crimes like rape and murder, and there isn't an accepted way of weighting different kinds of crimes.

D.C. Is An Outlier That Isn't Strictly Comparable 

The District of Columbia is an outlier, in part, because it only includes the central city of a larger metropolitan area that also includes a large part of the population of Virginia and Maryland, but has a disproportionate share of the low income neighborhoods of the metropolitan area. 

The District of Columbia also has a much higher daytime and nightlife population than its residential population that serves as the denominator in the crime rate formula. No U.S. state has the number of people in it surge as much with non-residents on a weekly basis. 

How do current crime levels compare to the past?

The same source also demonstrates that while crime has seen a modest uptick (mostly limited to murder) in the last few years, that this is coming from a near record low crime rate:

Crime in 2020 was 60% lower than in 1980. The crime rate began consistently declining in the early 1990s and fell every year between 2001 and 2020.

Both property and violent crimes reflect this long-term trend of decreasing crime. Property crime is down 63% since 1980, and violent crime is down 33%.

Property crime includes burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson, with larceny making up about 80% of property crimes. Violent crime includes homicide, rape, robbery, and aggravated assaults, with aggravated assaults making up 66% of violent crimes.

In 2020, the lower overall crime rate was driven by fewer property crimes, which were down 8.1% from 2019. Violent crime, on the other hand, was 4.7% higher over the same time period. This increase was primarily due to more aggravated assaults, but the homicide rate also increased by about 25%.