When the DNC delegates come to Chicago, they’ll be visiting the city that for more than a decade has experienced the most murders in the country. Chicago suffered 617 total homicides in 2023, marking the 12th year in a row it has led the country.
And it will be 13 years in a row if Chicago’s 2024’s homicide numbers continue at their current pace. The below chart shows how the top five cities nationally for total homicides may change from year to year, but what always remains true is Chicago’s position at the very top – often the extreme outlier.
That’s just one of the findings from Wirepoints’ analysis of publicly-available 2023 homicide data from the nation’s 75 largest U.S. cities.
St. Louis was the nation’s other murder capital in 2023 when based on homicides per capita. The Gateway City suffered 60 homicides per 100,000 residents, taking the top spot away from 2022’s capital, New Orleans.* The city was struggling even before George Floyd, with a homicide rate of 64.5 in 2019.
Looking at homicides on a per capita basis is the most logical way to measure the weight crime imposes on a given community. It also allows for an apples-to-apples comparison across cities. However, ranking cities by the number of homicides is also important due to the sheer number of murders that occur in big cities. St. Louis may have a homicide rate that’s much higher than Chicago, but it suffered less than a third of the murders Chicago did. They both deserve to be crowned murder capitals.
Below we list the nation’s top 20 cities by total homicides and per capita homicides and in Appendix A and B we list out all 75 cities.
Homicides have continued their year-on-year decline in most cities across the nation. That lessening bloodshed is good news, but it doesn’t change the fact that homicide rates remain far above their 2019 pre-covid, pre-George-Floyd levels.
The dnc will be held in Chicago. Who is making these idiotic decisions? As a diehard Trump supporter, I don’t give a damn where they have it. I do feel sorry for the businesses that will be destroyed like before, because some stupid dnc official can’t see three days in advance. They will never learn.