This article is an opinion based on facts and is meant as infotainment. It is our seventh time ranking the most places with the most murders per capita in Texas and is updated for 2021.
Do you live in one of the murder capitals of Texas?
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 Texas.
The result is the Murder Capitals of the Lone Star State for 2021:
The city with highest murder rate in Texas? That would be Forest Hill with 30.7 murders per 100,000 people.
While the city with highest number of murders period? Houston with 275.
Read on below to see how we crunched the numbers and how your town ranked. There were 'only' 135 cities in Texas where a city reported a murder to the FBI, meaning 177 places had no murder.
For more reading on the Lone Star State check out:
Population: 123,468 Rank Last Year: 44 Murders: 13 (12th Most) Murders Per 100k: 10.5 (37th Most) More on Odessa:Data | Photos
How we calculated the murder capitals of Texas
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 Texas for which FBI data was available for the most recent FBI Crime In The United States. That left us with 135 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 Texas For 2021
If you're looking at the places in Texas 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.
