Arkansas' 2024 violent crime rates among nation's highest
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Arkansas had some of the nation's highest violent crime and homicide rates in 2024, according to an Axios analysis of FBI data.
Why it matters: A state-by-state comparison paints a complex picture of U.S. crime trends as President Trump threatens to send the National Guard to Democrat-controlled cities in blue states over concerns about violent crime.
- The analysis indicates that rural states in the South and West had some of the highest violent crime and homicide rates in 2024, driven by violence in small communities.
The big picture: The president has dispatched the National Guard to Washington, D.C., and is considering sending troops to Boston, Chicago, Oakland, California, and Baltimore.
- Now Trump is facing questions about whether he'll send troops to communities in red states — many of them largely rural — where crime rates are actually higher than the areas he's targeted.
- "Sure, but there aren't that many of them," Trump said last week.
By the numbers: Nearly 576 violent crimes were reported for every 100,000 people in Arkansas during 2024.
- The number has been trending downward since the record high of nearly 672 in 2020, but it remains a significantly higher rate than the U.S. average of 350 per 100,000 people.
Zoom in: The 2023 Protect Arkansas Act has tightened sentencing and parole, theoretically helping to reduce violent crime and keep some offenders off the streets for longer.
- As a consequence, the state's overcrowded prison system is expected to become even more crowded, requiring another 2,000 beds by 2040.
- The projected need is helping drive Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders' push to build a controversial 3,000-bed prison in Franklin County.
Zoom out: Louisiana, Tennessee, Alabama and South Carolina were among the national leaders in both violent crime and homicide rates last year, a review of data found.
- All had violent crime and homicide rates well above the national average.
- Rural states Alaska and New Mexico had the highest incidence of violent crime in the country, with rates of 1,194.3 and 757.7, respectively.
Big-city crime often receives the most attention in political discourse, but an Axios analysis of rural states found that violence in small towns is driving some of the nation's highest crime rates.
- For example, Dyersburg, Tennessee, a community of 16,000, has a violent crime rate of 1,256.5 and a homicide rate of 18.8.
Between the lines: Rural crime often gets overlooked because most media outlets are centered in urban areas and focus just on crime there, Ralph Weisheit, a criminal justice professor at Illinois State University, tells Axios.
- The reasons for crime in rural areas vary, but Weisheit said in many cases, communities have higher rates of drug addiction.