The Federal Bureau of Investigation describes aggravated assault as an “unlawful attack by one person upon another for the purpose of inflicting severe or aggravated bodily injury.” The FBI Uniform Crime Report shows that there were 810,825 aggravated assaults in 2019. That is up 1.0% from the year before but down 3.9% from 2008. These incidents happened at a rate of 249 per 100,000 people during the year.
Among the ways the Uniform Crime Reports sorts crimes is by state and by city.
Even as violent crime continues to decrease in the United States, there are still metropolitan areas in which the rates of aggravated assault have skyrocketed over the past five years. One reason given is that the majority of these incidents are domestic violence, which appears to be on the rise. An example of this is a statement by Capt. Jeff Wilson of the St. Joseph Police Department: “What we’re seeing is primarily an increase in domestic assaults. Actually, the domestic assaults encompass the majority of our assaults.”
His comments were not isolated.
The city where aggravated assaults have risen the most is Kokomo, Indiana. Here are the details:
- Five-year change in assault: 221.2%
- Assaults in 2014: 138.9 per 100,000 (115)
- Assaults in 2019: 446.2 per 100,000 (368)
- Five-year change in violent crime: 144.6%
24/7 Wall St. recently reported on the soaring rate of homicides, also based on FBI data. Among the findings:
Homicides are rising at a record pace in the United States. According to a recent FBI report, there were a total of 21,570 murders committed in 2020, the most of any year in the last two and a half decades and up nearly 30% from 2019 — the largest annual increase on record.
Click here to see all 25 cities where aggravated assault is on the rise.
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