Murder in Utah

Claims

Statistics in Utah still reflect a discouraging social atmosphere
Murder per 100,000 Population Utah
3.90		 New Hampshire
1.70		 Iowa
1.70
North Dakota
0.90

- Divorce, Murder, and Rape in Utah, mazeministry.com

Is Utah's murder rate unusually high?

The author of the above claim has selected three of the few states that have a lower murder rate than Utah to create the impression that Utah's rate is high. However, Utah's murder rate is usually less than half the national average.

Figure 1 shows the murder rates for Utah and the United States. Rates are the number of murders per 100,000 residents.

Figure 1. Murder rates for the United States and Utah, 1994-2003.

How does Utah's rate compare to the rest of the country?

Table 1 shows how Utah's rate compares to the rest of the states. A rank of 1 indicates the highest rate.

Table 1. State murder rates for the United States, and Iowa's, New Hampshire's, North Dakota's, and Utah's rate and rank, 1994-2001.
Year High Average Low Iowa New Hampshire North Dakota Utah
1999 10.7 LA 5.7 1.5 IA,NH 1.5 (49th) 1.5 (49th) 1.6 (48th) 2.1 (44th)
2000 12.5 LA 5.5 0.6 ND 1.6 (45th) 1.8 (44th) 0.6 (50th) 1.9 (43rd)
2001 11.2 LA 5.6 0.9 SD 1.7 (45th) 1.3 (47th) 1.1 (48th) 2.9 (35th)
2002 13.2 LA 5.6 0.8 ND 1.5 (46th) 0.9 (49th) 0.8 (50th) 2.0 (42nd)
2003 13.0 LA 5.7 1.2 ME 1.6 (47th) 1.4 (48th) 1.9 (43rd) 2.5 (38th)

The following map shows how murder rates vary across the country.

Figure 2. State murder rates, 2003

Sources

Murder rates are from the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Crime in the United States.

Back to the Utah Statistics page

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws

1