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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.
So we wanted to get the facts straight and dug into the FBI crime data in order to identify the places with the most murders and the highest murder rates per capita in Kentucky.
The city with highest murder rate in Kentucky? That would be Shively with 31.6 murders per 100,000 people.
While the city with highest number of murders period? Louisville Metro with 94.
Read on below to see how we crunched the numbers and how your town ranked. There were 'only' 21 cities in Kentucky where a city reported a murder to the FBI, meaning 54 places had no murder.
For more reading on the Bluegrass State check out:
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The 10 Murder Capitals Of Kentucky For 2021
2. Louisville Metro
Population: 675,501
Rank Last Year: -
Murders: 94 (Most)
Murders Per 100k: 13.9 (7th Most)
More on Louisville Metro:
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 didn't want to rely on speculation and opinion. Instead, we looked at 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 that may happen in each city per year.
We only looked 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 21 cities to rank.
Finally, we averaged the two scores into an index:
- The raw number of murders in each city
- The murders per person
We felt as if a small place with 2,500 people and two murders makes it a lot more dangerous than a city of 25,000 people with three murders. Any ties went to the larger city. You can download the data here.
We must note that this report is not an analysis of the effectiveness of local police departments. It simply states where murders occurred most frequently on an absolute and rate basis.
There You Have It - The Places With The Most Murders In Kentucky For 2021
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.
For more kentucky reading, check out:
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Detailed List Of The Places With The Most Murder In Kentucky For 2021
| Rank | City | Murders |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Shively, KY | 5 |
| 2 | Louisville Metro, KY | 94 |
| 3 | Owensboro, KY | 6 |
| 4 | Murray, KY | 3 |
| 5 | Ashland, KY | 3 |
| 6 | Alexandria, KY | 2 |
| 7 | Lexington, KY | 26 |
| 8 | Frankfort, KY | 3 |
| 9 | Mayfield, KY | 2 |
| 10 | Elizabethtown, KY | 3 |
| 11 | Hopkinsville, KY | 3 |
| 12 | Williamsburg, KY | 1 |
| 13 | Bowling Green, KY | 4 |
| 14 | Radcliff, KY | 2 |
| 15 | Henderson, KY | 2 |
| 16 | Somerset, KY | 1 |
| 17 | Covington, KY | 2 |
| 18 | Bardstown, KY | 1 |
| 19 | Newport, KY | 1 |
| 20 | Madisonville, KY | 1 |
| 21 | Florence, KY | 1 |
Your data is incorrect, Louisville had 90 murders in 2019, and has had more than 100, several times in the past decade.
Very few murders get reported to the FBI, this is skewed.
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.
Louisville is the biggest city in Kentucky and has had 79 murdered this year.