How to Compare Crime Rates Between Two Cities

The short answer

To compare two cities, put the same year, the same crime category and the same kind of police agency side by side, and read the crime counts and populations along with the rates. Then treat any gap as a question, not a verdict. The FBI, which publishes the data, has a long-standing policy against ranking places by it, because a rate leaves out most of what makes two places different.

Step 1: compare police agencies, not city names

The FBI collects crime counts from police agencies. A “city's crime rate” is really the rate for that city's police department. Make sure both sides are the same kind of agency. A city department and a county sheriff's office are not alike: the sheriff usually polices only the parts of the county that no city department covers.

Step 2: same year, same category, full years only

Use the same calendar year for both. Compare violent crime with violent crime and property crime with property crime, never a total against a single category. And check that both agencies reported all 12 months. A rate built on nine months will look lower than it should, which is why CrimeTally shows no rate for a partial year.

Step 3: read the inputs, not just the two rates

Here are two neighboring Vermont departments in 2025, Burlington Police Department and South Burlington Police Department.

The violent rates are 482.5 and 230.7. The property rates are 4,076.3 and 4,704.6. The two categories point in opposite directions, so there is no single answer to “which city has more crime” even for these two. A one-number ranking would have to throw one of those rows away.

Step 4: ask what the rate can't see

A rate has only two inputs: reported crimes and resident population. The FBI's own guidance lists factors that shape crime from place to place and appear in neither. Among them:

• Population density and how urban the place is.
• Commuting patterns and people passing through, who are not counted as residents.
• Economic conditions, including income, poverty and jobs.
• The strength of the police agency and what it chooses to focus on.
• How readily people there report crimes to police.

A city that draws shoppers, students or tourists from its neighbors has more people in it each day than its population says. Crimes against them, or by them, count toward its total. Its population does not change. That alone can open a gap between two neighboring places.

Why rankings mislead

The FBI says rankings of this kind “have often created misleading perceptions” of places and the people who live in them, and that it “strongly discourages” using them to evaluate locales. A ranking turns small, noisy differences into an order, hides the inputs, and treats every place as if only crime set it apart from the next one on the list. That is why CrimeTally compares two agencies at a time with everything shown, and publishes no “safest” or “most dangerous” lists.

What this guide does not cover

It does not cover comparing neighborhoods inside one city, which the FBI's data cannot do, or comparing a city with a state or national figure. It also cannot tell you where to live. A reported crime rate is one input, and it says nothing certain about any one home, street or school.

Compare two agencies

The Compare Two Agencies tool builds the table above for any two US police agencies in the FBI's data, and says so when one of them has no full year to compare.

This guide is for informational purposes only and is not professional advice. A reported crime rate describes what one police agency reported to the FBI. It says nothing certain about any one home, street or school.

Last reviewed: September 2026 · Against the FBI Crime Data Explorer, September 2026 refresh, and the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Statistics: Their Proper Use (May 2017).