{
  "slug": "homicide-us",
  "question": "What are the odds of being murdered in the US?",
  "quick_answer": "The lifetime odds of being murdered in the US are about 1 in 339 for the average adult, from a 2024 rate of about 5.0 per 100,000 per year — the lowest since 2015. Many people guess closer to 1 in 100, and this pooled average hides large differences by age, sex, race, and geography.\n",
  "category": "crime",
  "no_reliable_estimate": false,
  "perceived": {
    "description": "Gallup's annual crime-worry poll asks Americans how frequently they worry about a list of specific crimes happening to them. In the October 2025 wave, 22% of US adults said they worry \"frequently\" or \"occasionally\" about being murdered. That places homicide roughly in the middle of the crime-worry list — below property crimes, above sexual assault — and is broadly stable year-over-year even as measured rates move.\n",
    "rough_estimate": "~1 in 100 lifetime feels about right to many respondents",
    "kind": "poll",
    "survey_source": {
      "title": "Crime in U.S. Seen as Less Serious for Second Straight Year",
      "publisher": "Gallup",
      "url": "https://news.gallup.com/poll/697124/crime-seen-less-serious-second-straight-year.aspx",
      "year": 2025
    }
  },
  "native": {
    "display": "~5.0 per 100,000 per year",
    "numerator": 50,
    "denominator": 1000000,
    "unit": "per year",
    "population": "US residents, all ages and demographics pooled"
  },
  "normalized": {
    "lifetime_us_adult": 0.00295,
    "display": "1 in ~339 lifetime (US adult)",
    "log_value": -2.53,
    "assumptions": "Revised 2026-06 to the FBI's official 2024 UCR rate of 5.0 per 100,000 per year, down 14.9% from 2023 (the largest one-year homicide decline on record and the lowest rate since 2015), after a ~10% drop in 2023. This continues the normalization of the 2020–2021 pandemic spike (which peaked at ~6.7 per 100,000). Assumes 59 years of remaining adult life and constant annual hazard. Compounded: 1 − (1 − 0.00005)^59 ≈ 0.00295 ≈ 1 in 339. The uncertainty band now runs from ~4.0 per 100,000 (the level the Council on Criminal Justice projects 2025 may reach when full FBI data land — potentially the lowest since 1900) up to ~6.7 per 100,000 (the 2020 peak), the realistic envelope over a 59-year horizon rather than sampling error. This is a population average that pools across age, sex, race, and geography; see caveats.\n",
    "uncertainty": {
      "low": 0.00236,
      "high": 0.00395
    },
    "scope": "us_adult_lifetime"
  },
  "sources": [
    {
      "url": "https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm",
      "title": "FastStats — Assault or Homicide",
      "publisher": "CDC National Center for Health Statistics",
      "source_type": "govt_report",
      "statistic": "20,162 homicide deaths in the US in 2024; rate of 5.9 per 100,000",
      "excerpt": "\"Number of deaths: 20,162. Deaths per 100,000 population: 5.9. Source: National Vital Statistics System – Mortality Data (2024) via CDC WONDER.\"\n",
      "source_date": "2024-12-31",
      "source_accessed": "2026-04-11",
      "archive_url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260413172818/https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm",
      "calculation_notes": "CDC NVSS counts homicides from death certificates coded as assault (ICD-10 X85–Y09, Y87.1). Annual rate 5.9 / 100,000 = 0.000059 per person-year. Lifetime over 59 adult years: 1 − (1 − 0.000059)^59 ≈ 0.00348 ≈ 1 in 287. Uncertainty band reflects the 2014–2021 US range (~4.5 to ~7.8 per 100,000), which is the realistic envelope over a 59-year horizon rather than a statistical sampling error.\n",
      "independence_note": "CDC NVSS is derived from death certificates filed by medical examiners and coroners; BJS/FBI numbers come from law-enforcement incident reports. They count meaningfully differently and serve as independent checks on each other.\n"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://www.fbi.gov/news/press-releases/fbi-releases-2024-reported-crimes-in-the-nation-statistics",
      "title": "FBI Releases 2024 Reported Crimes in the Nation Statistics",
      "publisher": "Federal Bureau of Investigation (UCR)",
      "source_type": "govt_report",
      "statistic": "US murder and nonnegligent manslaughter rate fell 14.9% in 2024 to 5.0 per 100,000 — largest one-year decline on record and lowest since 2015; 2020 peak was 6.7 per 100,000",
      "excerpt": "\"Murder and non-negligent manslaughter recorded a 2024 estimated nationwide decrease of 14.9% compared to the previous year.\" The 2024 rate of 5 per 100,000 inhabitants is the lowest recorded since 2015; over the prior 20 years the rate peaked at 6.7 per 100,000 in 2020 and reached its lowest at 4.4 per 100,000 in 2014.\n",
      "source_date": "2025-08-05",
      "source_accessed": "2026-06-14",
      "archive_url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260708002536/https://www.fbi.gov/news/press-releases/fbi-releases-2024-reported-crimes-in-the-nation-statistics",
      "calculation_notes": "FBI UCR (NIBRS-based) reports a 2024 murder/nonnegligent-manslaughter rate of 5.0 per 100,000, a 14.9% year-over-year decline. (A 14.9% drop to 5.0 implies a 2023 base of ~5.9 per 100,000, consistent with the CDC NVSS and BJS 2023 figures used as cross-checks above; the secondary press number of \"5.7\" for 2023 does not reconcile exactly with the official 14.9% decline, so we cite only the verified 2024 rate and percent change.) Annual rate 5.0 / 100,000 = 0.00005 per person-year. Lifetime over 59 adult years: 1 − (1 − 0.00005)^59 ≈ 0.00295 ≈ 1 in 339. The new headline replaces the prior ~5.9 (2023–2024) figure and reflects the post-pandemic decline. Uncertainty low bound 0.00236 uses the Council on Criminal Justice ~4.0 per 100,000 projection for 2025 (see separate CCJ source); high bound 0.00395 uses the 2020 peak of ~6.7 per 100,000.\n",
      "independence_note": "FBI UCR aggregates law-enforcement incident reports nationally; it is the same agency pipeline as BJS victimization but is the primary, most timely official rate series and is independent of CDC's death-certificate NVSS count. The 14.9% 2024 decline is corroborated by CBS News and the Center for American Progress analyses of the same release.\n"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://counciloncj.org/crime-trends-in-u-s-cities-year-end-2025-update/",
      "title": "Crime Trends in U.S. Cities: Year-End 2025 Update",
      "publisher": "Council on Criminal Justice",
      "source_type": "reputable_reference",
      "statistic": "Homicides in 35 study cities fell 21% in 2025 vs 2024; CCJ projects the 2025 national rate could reach ~4.0 per 100,000 — potentially the lowest since 1900",
      "excerpt": "\"That would be the lowest rate ever recorded in law enforcement or public health data going back to 1900, and would mark the largest single-year percentage drop in the homicide rate on record.\"\n",
      "source_date": "2026-01-22",
      "source_accessed": "2026-06-14",
      "archive_url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260711204154/https://counciloncj.org/crime-trends-in-u-s-cities-year-end-2025-update/",
      "calculation_notes": "CCJ aggregates reported homicides across 35 large US cities and projects that if the FBI's full 2025 report tracks the observed 21% city-level decline, the national 2025 rate would fall to about 4.0 per 100,000. This 4.0 figure (≈0.00004 per person-year) is the basis for this entry's uncertainty low bound: 1 − (1 − 0.00004)^59 ≈ 0.00236. Treated as the floor of the band, not the point estimate, because full-year FBI data are not yet final.\n",
      "independence_note": "CCJ is a non-governmental research body compiling municipal police data; methodologically independent of both the FBI's national UCR aggregation and CDC's death-certificate NVSS.\n"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/homicide-victimization-united-states-2023",
      "title": "Homicide Victimization in the United States, 2023",
      "publisher": "US Bureau of Justice Statistics",
      "source_type": "govt_report",
      "statistic": "US homicide victimization rate 5.9 per 100,000 in 2023; male rate 9.3 vs female 2.6; Black rate 21.3 vs white 3.2",
      "excerpt": "\"The rate of homicide victimization was 5.9 per 100,000 persons. The male homicide victimization rate (9.3 per 100,000 persons) was 3.5 times greater than the homicide victimization rate for females (2.6 per 100,000). The homicide victimization rate for black persons (21.3 per 100,000 persons) was more than 6 times the rate for white persons (3.2 per 100,000).\"\n",
      "source_date": "2025-07-10",
      "source_accessed": "2026-04-11",
      "archive_url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260413172849/https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/homicide-victimization-united-states-2023",
      "calculation_notes": "BJS computes victimization rates from FBI Supplementary Homicide Reports / NIBRS. Their 2023 rate of 5.9 per 100,000 matches CDC's 2024 figure to the first decimal, giving us a robust central estimate. The demographic breakdowns feed directly into the heterogeneity caveat: a factor-of-~7 spread across race and ~3.5 across sex means the pooled average is the wrong number for any specific reader.\n",
      "independence_note": "FBI/BJS law-enforcement incident data and CDC/NVSS death-certificate data are collected through entirely different pipelines by different federal agencies. Agreement to the first decimal is strong corroboration, not circular.\n"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://news.gallup.com/poll/697124/crime-seen-less-serious-second-straight-year.aspx",
      "title": "Crime in U.S. Seen as Less Serious for Second Straight Year",
      "publisher": "Gallup",
      "source_type": "reputable_reference",
      "statistic": "22% of US adults worry frequently or occasionally about being murdered (October 2025)",
      "excerpt": "\"Fewer Americans say they worry about crimes, such as having a car stolen (39%) or their home burglarized (34%), being a victim of a hate crime (30%), or getting mugged (29%), attacked while driving (27%), murdered (22%) or sexually assaulted (21%).\"\n",
      "source_date": "2025-10-30",
      "source_accessed": "2026-04-11",
      "archive_url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260413172538/https://news.gallup.com/poll/697124/crime-seen-less-serious-second-straight-year.aspx",
      "calculation_notes": "Used for the perceived-risk side only. The 22% figure is the fraction of respondents reporting frequent-or-occasional worry, not an elicited probability. There is no direct conversion to a subjective lifetime probability, but it is the best time-series instrument for tracking US homicide-worry at the national level.\n",
      "independence_note": "Gallup conducts an independent annual telephone/web survey; methodologically independent of both CDC vital-statistics and BJS victimization data."
    },
    {
      "url": "https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26551975/",
      "title": "Violent Death Rates: The US Compared with Other High-income OECD Countries, 2010",
      "publisher": "American Journal of Medicine (Grinshteyn & Hemenway)",
      "source_type": "peer_reviewed",
      "statistic": "US homicide rate was 7.0 times higher than in other high-income OECD countries in 2010, driven by a gun homicide rate 25.2 times higher",
      "excerpt": "\"US homicide rates were 7.0 times higher than in other high-income countries, driven by a gun homicide rate that was 25.2 times higher.\"\n",
      "source_date": "2016-03-01",
      "source_accessed": "2026-07-04",
      "archive_url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260710103356/https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26551975/",
      "calculation_notes": "Used only for the international-comparison sentence in the body text (\"roughly 7x above other high-income countries\"); not used in the native/normalized lifetime-probability calculation, which relies solely on the US-specific FBI/CDC/BJS/CCJ figures above.\n",
      "independence_note": "Grinshteyn & Hemenway compile cross-national mortality data (WHO Mortality Database) independently of the US-specific FBI/CDC/BJS figures used for the primary estimate; cited here for international context only.\n"
    }
  ],
  "comparison_anchors": [
    {
      "label": "Death in a car crash (lifetime, US)",
      "lifetime_us_adult": 0.0108
    },
    {
      "label": "Death by lightning strike (lifetime, US)",
      "lifetime_us_adult": 0.00000354
    },
    {
      "label": "Dying in a plane crash (lifetime, US adult, ~2 flights/yr)",
      "lifetime_us_adult": 0.000017
    }
  ],
  "personal_factor_multipliers": [
    {
      "factor": "Male sex",
      "multiplier": 3.5,
      "notes": "BJS Homicide Victimization in the United States, 2023: male rate 9.3 per 100,000 vs. female rate 2.6 per 100,000 — a 3.5× differential."
    },
    {
      "factor": "Age 15–34 vs. all-age average",
      "multiplier": 5,
      "notes": "CDC WISQARS 2022: homicide victimization peaks sharply in the 15–34 age band; the age-specific rate for this group is approximately 5× the all-age rate of 5.9 per 100,000."
    },
    {
      "factor": "Urban core vs. suburban/rural residence",
      "multiplier": 9,
      "notes": "FBI UCR 2022: city-level data show a roughly 8–10× spread between the highest-rate urban census tracts and low-crime suburban/rural areas; 9× used as a central estimate."
    },
    {
      "factor": "Prior violent victimization",
      "multiplier": 6,
      "notes": "BJS longitudinal victimization data: individuals with a prior violent victimization history face approximately 6× elevated risk of subsequent homicide victimization compared with the general population."
    },
    {
      "factor": "Black race vs. white",
      "multiplier": 6.7,
      "notes": "BJS Homicide Victimization in the United States, 2023: Black homicide victimization rate 21.3 per 100,000 vs. white rate 3.2 per 100,000 — a 6.7× differential (more than 6× per BJS)."
    }
  ],
  "short_label": "Homicide",
  "outcome_severity": "fatal",
  "exposure_pattern": "acute",
  "outcome_type": "death",
  "valence": "negative",
  "caveats": "This is the single field where a pooled average is most misleading. The US homicide rate varies by more than an order of magnitude across demographics: BJS reports the male rate at 9.3 per 100,000 versus 2.6 for females, and the rate for Black Americans at 21.3 versus 3.2 for white Americans. Age is just as skewed — homicide victimization peaks sharply in the 15–34 band and falls off steeply at both ends. Geography compounds all of this: county-level rates span roughly two orders of magnitude, with a small number of census tracts accounting for a disproportionate share of incidents. The \"1 in 339\" pooled figure is the right answer to \"what is the US average?\" and the wrong answer to \"what is *my* risk?\" for almost every individual reader. The headline is also moving fast: the FBI's official 2024 rate of 5.0 per 100,000 was a 14.9% one-year drop — the largest on record and the lowest rate since 2015 — after a roughly 10% decline in 2023, and the Council on Criminal Justice projects 2025 may reach about 4.0 per 100,000, which would be the lowest since 1900. This entry uses the official 2024 figure as its point estimate and treats the 2025 projection as the lower edge of the uncertainty band until full-year FBI data confirm it.\n",
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    "scored_at": "2026-05-25",
    "methodology_version": "1.2"
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  "last_reviewed": "2026-06-14",
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