Cities With the Most Aggravated Assault (2025)
Aggravated assault — an attack involving a weapon or intent to cause serious bodily injury — is the highest-volume violent offense the FBI tracks, and it drives much of the spread in city-level violent crime rates. This ranks every city we track (population 50,000+) by reported aggravated assaults per 100,000 residents for 2025, using FBI Crime Data Explorer figures.
The national reported aggravated assault rate for 2025 is 228.0 per 100,000 residents. Of the 759 cities we track, 113 cities report a aggravated assault rate more than double that national average. See the full methodology for how rates are calculated from FBI Crime Data Explorer reports.
Top 25 cities by aggravated assault rate
Ranked by reported aggravated assault incidents per 100,000 residents, highest first. Population 50,000+ cities only.
| # | City | Rate per 100k | Population | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Memphis, TN | 1521.4 | 606,629 | F |
| 2 | Detroit, MI | 1395.8 | 642,155 | F |
| 3 | Little Rock, AR | 1186.9 | 205,320 | F |
| 4 | Gary, IN | 1171.2 | 67,197 | F |
| 5 | Lansing, MI | 1082.0 | 114,787 | F |
| 6 | Kansas, MO | 1075.0 | 518,039 | F |
| 7 | Lafayette, LA | 1024.6 | 122,489 | F |
| 8 | Wichita, KS | 1003.2 | 401,730 | F |
| 9 | Springfield, OH | 997.8 | 58,026 | F |
| 10 | Oakland, CA | 997.7 | 444,211 | F |
| 11 | Shreveport, LA | 988.4 | 174,114 | F |
| 12 | Birmingham, AL | 977.5 | 195,393 | F |
| 13 | Springfield, MO | 976.3 | 170,958 | F |
| 14 | Flint, MI | 973.6 | 79,396 | E |
| 15 | Evansville, IN | 951.2 | 114,905 | F |
| 16 | Cleveland, OH | 930.3 | 363,659 | F |
| 17 | Dayton, OH | 926.9 | 136,047 | F |
| 18 | Pueblo, CO | 922.7 | 110,981 | F |
| 19 | St Louis, MO | 922.4 | 274,819 | F |
| 20 | Peoria, IL | 911.2 | 111,389 | F |
| 21 | Battle Creek, MI | 882.0 | 61,225 | F |
| 22 | Compton, CA | 864.7 | 90,092 | F |
| 23 | Wilmington, DE | 848.5 | 73,773 | F |
| 24 | Milwaukee, WI | 838.1 | 559,717 | F |
| 25 | Kalamazoo, MI | 828.7 | 73,244 | F |
At the other end of the same 759-city field, these 5 report the lowest aggravated assault rate per 100,000 residents.
No area has zero risk
A high Crime Index score means lower reported crime relative to other US cities — it is not a guarantee of safety. Reported crime is not the same as actual crime. Research on the gap between crime that occurs and crime that gets reported to police — often called the "dark figure" of crime — estimates that roughly 40% of violent crime and about a third of property crime go unreported each year. Every index built on official statistics, including this one, necessarily undercounts real crime. That gap is exactly why homicide — the offense with the smallest dark figure — anchors the calculation instead of a more commonly reported but less reliable category like theft.
Scores on this page reflect FBI-reported data for 2025. See the full methodology →