Trends in Violent Crime and Accountability

50-state violent crime data

  • 2019–2024 change
  • 2024 crime rate

From 2019 to 2024, the national violent crime rate declined despite an increase in 2020. In 2024, rates of homicide, rape, and robbery were lower than their rates in 2019. The rate of aggravated assault was slightly higher in 2024 than in 2019, but down from its peak in 2020.

Trends in violent crime also varied by state. Between 2019 and 2024, violent crime rates in 39 states and the District of Columbia decreased, while violent crime rates in 11 states increased.

  • 2019–2024 change
  • 2024 solve rate

Between 2019 and 2024, the percentage of violent crimes solved by law enforcement decreased in 26 states and the District of Columbia, while increasing in 24 states.

Illinois did not report enough data to the FBI on whether crimes were solved to make reliable estimates.

Trends in reported violent crime

In 2024, 359 violent crime incidents per 100,000 residents were reported to police in the United States.

  • All violent crime
  • Homicide
  • Aggravated assault
  • Robbery
  • Rape
  • By offense

Trends in solved violent crime

In 2024, 44 percent of violent crime incidents reported to police in the United States were solved. The percentage of violent crimes that law enforcement solved fell from 2019 to 2022 and increased in 2024 to its highest level since 2015.

  • All violent crime
  • By offense

Violent crime and solved violent crime by state, 2024

The following tables include violent crime rates and solve rates by state and offense. For more information on violent crime solve rates for each offense by state, visit state-specific pages here.

  • Overall rates
  • By offense

Orange indicates a solve rate less than the state average across the United States.

Blue indicates a solve rate greater than or equal to the state average across the United States.

Data regarding crime and solve rates come from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program. Violent crime includes homicide, aggravated assault, robbery, and rape. Crime rates are calculated by dividing the number of estimated incidents by the total population for a given geography. Solve rates are the number of reported crimes cleared by arrest or by exceptional means divided by the number of reported crimes. For more information, see the data sources and methodology section below.


Trends in law enforcement resources

State expenditures include spending on police, sheriffs, and highway patrols. The charts below also include staffing per 10,000 residents and per 1,000 violent crimes. These factors may show the level of policing a community receives, potentially influencing both crime and solve rates and providing insight into how law enforcement resources impact violent crime.

  • State expenditures
  • Officers per capita
  • Officers per violent offense

Overall, state spending on law enforcement increased across the United States by 21 percent from 2013 to 2023, adjusting for inflation.



The number of officers per 10k residents in jurisdictions across the United States has increased by 1 percent from 2013 to 2023.



The number of officers per 1k violent crimes in jurisdictions across the United States has increased by 11 percent from 2013 to 2023.


Trends in homicide solve rates

The following chart includes homicide solve rates by race and ethnicity, gender, age, weapon type, and number of victims. For more information, see the data and methodology sections below.

In the United States, homicide solve rates are highest when the victim is White and are lowest when the victim is Black. Homicide solve rates are highest when the victim is a woman and lowest when the victim is a man.

  • Race and ethnicity
  • Gender
  • Age
  • Weapon
  • Number of victims


Data sources and methodology

Data regarding crime and solve rates come from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program. Counts of reported violent crime between 2014 and 2024 are derived from the Summary Reporting System (SRS) and the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). The FBI generated national estimates for reported crime based on agency-level reports, and these estimates were published through 2024 in the FBI’s annual report, Crime in the U.S., and on the FBI’s Crime Data Explorer. For clearance data, we used Jacob Kaplan’s version of the Offenses Known and Clearances by Arrest dataset, which includes agency-level data on reported crime and clearances.

The FBI stopped SRS data collection after data year 2020 and required law enforcement agencies to use NIBRS to report crime statistics to the FBI. This change decreased the number of agencies that submitted their crime data and thus reduced the reliability of state estimates in 2021. From 2022 through 2024, the FBI allowed agencies who were unable to submit NIBRS data to submit SRS data again. Ninety-six percent of the U.S. population was covered in the 2024 crime data submissions to the FBI, with most states providing close to complete data. However, the population upon which the estimates were derived decreased by over 10 percent in three states: Florida, Mississippi, and Wyoming, so conclusions about crime changes in those states should be interpreted with additional caution.

Crime rates are calculated by dividing the number of estimated incidents by the total U.S. population. Population data come from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey 1-year estimates (table B01003) and the 2020 Decennial Census Redistricting Data (table P1).

Solve rates are the number of reported crimes cleared by arrest or by exceptional means divided by the number of reported crimes. A reported crime incident is cleared by exceptional means if a law enforcement agency is unable to arrest or formally charge a person with a crime, but the agency has met the following conditions:

  1. Identified the person who committed the crime
  2. Gathered enough evidence to support an arrest, make a charge, and turn over the person to the court for prosecution
  3. Identified the suspect’s exact location so that the person could be taken into custody immediately
  4. Encountered a circumstance outside the control of law enforcement that prohibits the agency from arresting, charging, and prosecuting the person

Examples of exceptional clearances include the death of the person who committed the crime; the victim’s refusal to cooperate with the prosecution after the person who committed the crime has been identified; or the denial of extradition.

Data regarding state law enforcement expenditures were downloaded from the U.S. Census Bureau Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances.

Officer employment analysis is restricted to sworn law enforcement officers and was downloaded from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program police employee data files.

Data on homicide solve rate trends and case characteristics come from the FBI’s Supplementary Homicide Reporting (SHR) Program.