What are the odds of being murdered in the US?
Evidence quality 5.0/5
Eight-dimension review score against the quality rubric . Each dimension scored 1–5.
- D1 Source grounding
- 5/5
- D2 Source authority
- 5/5
- D3 Arithmetic
- 5/5
- D4 Uncertainty
- 5/5
- D5 Scope
- 5/5
- D6 Prose
- 5/5
- D7 Perception honesty
- 5/5
- D8 Caveat completeness
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≈ As likely as
Perceived
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.
Rough estimate: ~1 in 100 lifetime feels about right to many respondents
Source: Gallup (2025) — Crime in U.S. Seen as Less Serious for Second Straight Year
Actual
~5.0 per 100,000 per year
US residents, all ages and demographics pooled
Show derivation
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.
Caveats: This is the single field where a pooled average is most misleading. The US homic…
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.
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The population-level numbers on US homicide are unusually well-agreed and, lately, falling fast. The FBI’s official 2024 figure puts the rate at 5.0 homicide deaths per 100,000 residents per year — a 14.9% drop from 2023, the largest one-year decline on record and the lowest rate since 2015, after a roughly 10% drop the year before. Compounded naively over a 59-year remaining adult lifetime, that works out to roughly 1 in 339. For context, that is well over 100× higher than the lifetime odds of dying in a plane crash, and about 4× lower than the lifetime odds of dying in a car crash. Early-2025 city data tracked by the Council on Criminal Justice point even lower — possibly ~4.0 per 100,000, which would be the lowest since 1900 — so this entry treats that level as the floor of its uncertainty band.
What is interesting about homicide-worry is that Americans consistently overstate their personal risk while understating the variance in that risk. Gallup’s annual tracker has about 22% of US adults saying they worry frequently or occasionally about being murdered, a number that barely moves even when the actual rate swings by 30% between years. The US does sit roughly 5–7× above the per-capita homicide rate of other high-income countries, so the elevated baseline concern is not irrational. But the people who worry most are often those whose demographic and geographic profile put them well below the national average.
The heterogeneity is the whole story. The male rate is 3.5× the female rate. The rate for Black Americans is more than 6× the rate for white Americans. Homicide victimization peaks in the 15–34 age band and is concentrated in a small fraction of census tracts. A 55-year-old white woman in a low-crime suburb and an 18-year-old Black man in a high-crime urban block are both “US residents” averaged into the same 5.0 per 100,000 number, but their actual annual risks differ by more than a factor of fifty. The pooled figure above is a population accounting identity. It is not a personal forecast, and it should not be read as one.
Related tidbits
Dying of an accidental drug overdose is about 7× more likely than being murdered over a US adult lifetime (~1 in 42 vs ~1 in 290). Overdose surpassed homicide nationally in the late 2010s and stayed there.
Accidental falls kill roughly 44,000 Americans per year. Homicide kills about 26,000. Falls are the deadlier threat by a wide margin, but no one checks over their shoulder on the stairs.
Claim ledger
Every number below is what each source reported, with the verbatim quote we relied on and how we arrived at our figure. Click any link to verify directly.
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[1] CDC National Center for Health Statistics — FastStats — Assault or Homicide
FastStats — Assault or Homicide- 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." ”
- Source data from
- 2024-12-31
- Accessed
- 2026-04-11 · archived copy
- Calculation
- 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.
- Independence
- 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.
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[2] Federal Bureau of Investigation (UCR) — FBI Releases 2024 Reported Crimes in the Nation Statistics
FBI Releases 2024 Reported Crimes in the Nation StatisticsSee all 2 Likelier entries citing this source →
- 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. ”
- Source data from
- 2025-08-05
- Accessed
- 2026-06-14
- Calculation
- 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.
- Independence
- 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.
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[3] Council on Criminal Justice — Crime Trends in U.S. Cities: Year-End 2025 Update
Crime Trends in U.S. Cities: Year-End 2025 Update- 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." ”
- Source data from
- 2026-01-22
- Accessed
- 2026-06-14
- Calculation
- 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.
- Independence
- 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.
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[4] US Bureau of Justice Statistics — Homicide Victimization in the United States, 2023
Homicide Victimization in the United States, 2023- 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)." ”
- Source data from
- 2025-07-10
- Accessed
- 2026-04-11 · archived copy
- Calculation
- 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.
- Independence
- 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.
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[5] Gallup — Crime in U.S. Seen as Less Serious for Second Straight Year
Crime in U.S. Seen as Less Serious for Second Straight YearSee all 6 Likelier entries citing this source →
- 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%)." ”
- Source data from
- 2025-10-30
- Accessed
- 2026-04-11 · archived copy
- Calculation
- 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.
- Independence
- Gallup conducts an independent annual telephone/web survey; methodologically independent of both CDC vital-statistics and BJS victimization data.