Last Updated on March 23, 2021
3. Baltimore, Maryland
Located in the state of Maryland just about 40 miles northeast of Washington, D. C., Baltimore is an independent city with a population of more than 600 thousand.
Some Baltimore neighborhoods have a really bad reputation, and rightfully so.
The city has an enormous drug problem in its hands. According to the DEA, 10% of Baltimore’s population is addicted to heroin. That’s nearly 65 thousand people falling victim to drug abuse.
In addition, it has the second-highest murder rate in the country (about 56 homicides per 100 thousand people per year); it is the third city with the most total number of violent crimes per year – only behind the two other cities already mentioned in this list; and it is the city with the highest number of robberies per capita by a good margin.
It is worth mentioning that in 2015 the city registered 344 homicides. So the murder rate is not expected to fall to acceptable values anytime soon.
4. New Orleans, Louisiana
New Orleans Is the largest city in the state of Louisiana. In 1994, it was named the “Murder Capital of America” after 424 murders were reported in the course of that year. Since then, the murder rate decreased considerably and is now slightly below Detroit’s, at 39 murders per 100,000 people per year. But this decrease doesn’t mean that New Orleans is on the right track to be considered a safe place.
5. Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is the largest city on the Mississippi River with over 650,000 inhabitants. It is regarded as one of the more culturally significant cities of the southern US and it is the city where great music artists like Elvis Presley, Aretha Franklin, Johnny Cash, and B. B. King started their careers back in the 50s and 60s.
Crime waves swirl a lot in this city. At the beginning of the century, it was considered the second most dangerous American city.
Then the crime rate decreased significantly and in 2016 the number of murders peaked again with 228 reported cases (a 63% increase compared to the numbers of the previous years). Nowadays, if we rank American cities by the number of total violent crimes per 100 thousand people per year, Memphis sits in the 4th position.
