Murders Per Capita By City In Kentucky For 2024


The cities with the most murder per capita in Kentucky are Oak Grove and Shively for 2024.

Do you live in one of the murder capitals of Kentucky?

We all watch the news with horror when we hear about a homicide that happens not that far away from us. While a murder just blocks or even a couple of towns away from your house would make anyone uneasy, in the long run, most likely, where you live is relatively safe.

To find the cities in Kentucky with the most murders and the highest murder rates per capita, we used Saturday Night Science to compare the FBI crime data on murders for the 20 cities in the Bluegrass State with over 6,000 residents.


Table Of Contents: Top Ten | Methodology | Summary | Table


Cities With Highest Murder Rate In Kentucky Map

Cities With Highest Murder Rates In Kentucky

  1. Oak Grove
  2. Shively
  3. Louisville Metro
  4. Paducah
  5. Hopkinsville
  6. Princeton
  7. Lebanon
  8. Frankfort
  9. Lexington
  10. Ashland

What city has the highest murder rate in Kentucky? The city with the highest murder rate in Kentucky is Oak Grove with 38.4 murders per 100,000 people.

What is the city in Kentucky with highest number of murders? The city in Kentucky with the highest number of murders is Louisville Metro with 192 murders.

Read on below to see how we crunched the numbers and how your town in Kentucky ranked. There were ‘only’ 20 cities in Kentucky where a city reported a murder to the FBI, meaning 57 places had no murder.

For more reading on the Bluegrass State check out:

The 10 Murder Capitals Of Kentucky For 2024

Oak Grove, KY

Source: Flickr User isydiavibes | CC BY-SA 2.0

Overall SnackAbility

5
/10

Population: 7,810
Murders: 3 (8th Most)
Murders Per 100k: 38.4 (Most)
More on Oak Grove: Data | Crime | Cost Of Living

Shively, KY

Source: Wikipedia User | CC-BY-2.5

Overall SnackAbility

5
/10

Population: 15,438
Murders: 5 (4th Most)
Murders Per 100k: 32.4 (2nd Most)
More on Shively: Data | Crime | Cost Of Living

3. Louisville Metro

Source: Public Domain

Overall SnackAbility

/10

Population: 678,236
Murders: 192 (Most)
Murders Per 100k: 28.3 (3rd Most)
More on Louisville Metro:

Paducah, KY

Source: Flickr User pasa47 | CC BY 2.0

Overall SnackAbility

5
/10

Population: 26,050
Murders: 6 (3rd Most)
Murders Per 100k: 23.0 (4th Most)
More on Paducah: Data | Crime | Cost Of Living

Hopkinsville, KY

Source: Public domain

Overall SnackAbility

4
/10

Population: 30,528
Murders: 5 (4th Most)
Murders Per 100k: 16.4 (5th Most)
More on Hopkinsville: Data | Crime | Cost Of Living

Princeton, KY

Source: Wikipedia User Dlove4000 | GFDL

Overall SnackAbility

5
/10

Population: 6,191
Murders: 1 (16th Most)
Murders Per 100k: 16.2 (6th Most)
More on Princeton: Data | Crime | Cost Of Living

Lebanon, KY

Source: Wikipedia User W.marsh | GFDL

Overall SnackAbility

5
/10

Population: 6,473
Murders: 1 (16th Most)
Murders Per 100k: 15.4 (7th Most)
More on Lebanon: Data | Crime | Cost Of Living

Frankfort, KY

Source: Public domain

Overall SnackAbility

6
/10

Population: 28,559
Murders: 3 (8th Most)
Murders Per 100k: 10.5 (8th Most)
More on Frankfort: Data | Crime | Cost Of Living

Lexington, KY

Source: Public domain

Overall SnackAbility

6
/10

Population: 320,983
Murders: 33 (2nd Most)
Murders Per 100k: 10.3 (9th Most)
More on Lexington: Data | Crime

Ashland, KY

Source: Public domain

Overall SnackAbility

5
/10

Population: 21,300
Murders: 2 (11th Most)
Murders Per 100k: 9.4 (10th Most)
More on Ashland: Data | Crime | Cost Of Living

Methodology: How we calculated the murder capitals of Kentucky

While there are surveys and public polls on what cities in a state are the most dangerous, we wanted to rely on something other than speculation and opinion. Instead, we used Saturday Night Science to compare the hard numbers from the FBI’s last year of reporting. Specifically, we analyzed the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report, which summarizes the number of murders in each city annually.

We only looked at every single city in Kentucky for which FBI data was available for the most recent FBI Crime In The United States. That left us with 20 cities to rank.

We took the number of murders per capita as the ranking factor. The place with the most murders per capita based on the most recent data is Oak Grove. It is our tenth time ranking the places with the most murders per capita in Kentucky. We updated the list for 2024.

Summary: The Places With The Most Murders In Kentucky For 2024

If you’re looking at the places in Kentucky with the most murders, and where residents have the highest chances of being killed themselves, this is an accurate list. Again, these statistics are an indication of where crimes occur, not a statement about the effectiveness of the law enforcement in the areas they serve.

The cities with the highest murder per capita in Kentucky are Oak Grove, Shively, Louisville Metro, Paducah, Hopkinsville, Princeton, Lebanon, Frankfort, Lexington, and Ashland.

For more Kentucky reading, check out:

Murder Rates By City In Kentucky

Rank City Population Murders Murders/100K
1 Oak Grove, KY 7810 3 38.41
2 Shively, KY 15438 5 32.39
3 Louisville Metro, KY 678236 192 28.31
4 Paducah, KY 26050 6 23.03
5 Hopkinsville, KY 30528 5 16.38
6 Princeton, KY 6191 1 16.15
7 Lebanon, KY 6473 1 15.45
8 Frankfort, KY 28559 3 10.5
9 Lexington, KY 320983 33 10.28
10 Ashland, KY 21300 2 9.39
11 Henderson, KY 27503 2 7.27
12 Newport, KY 14017 1 7.13
13 Bowling Green, KY 74427 4 5.37
14 Owensboro, KY 59839 3 5.01
15 Covington, KY 40657 2 4.92
16 Versailles, KY 27242 1 3.67
17 Jeffersontown, KY 28519 1 3.51
18 Independence, KY 29211 1 3.42
19 Nicholasville, KY 31882 1 3.14
20 Georgetown, KY 38213 1 2.62
About Chris Kolmar

Chris Kolmar has been in the real estate business for almost ten years now. He originally worked for Movoto Real Estate as the director of marketing before founding HomeSnacks.

He believes the key to finding the right place to live comes down to looking at the data, reading about things to do, and, most importantly, checking it out yourself before you move.

If you've been looking for a place to live in the past several years, you've probably stumbled upon his writing already.

You can find out more about him on LinkedIn or his website.

4 thoughts on “Murders Per Capita By City In Kentucky For 2024

  1. Your data is incorrect, Louisville had 90 murders in 2019, and has had more than 100, several times in the past decade.

  2. Ranking murder rates this way is very skewed. That is like saying N.Y.C.is less dangerous than Williamsburg KY because there is a larger percentage of the population that was murdered even though the number of people murdered in Williamsburg KY doesn’t come close to the number of people murdered in New York City.

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