Venezuela and Afghanistan may be farther away from reaching the United Nations' goal for peaceful, secure societies than any other country in the world, based on their scores on Gallup's 2018 Law and Order Index.
Violent crime, including homicides, rose for the second consecutive year in 2016, driven by increases in a few urban centers including Baltimore, Chicago and Las Vegas.
From 2014 to 2015, there was no statistically significant change in the overall rate of violent crime, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS).
According to the FBI's National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), in 2014, 6,520 law enforcement agencies—charged with protecting more than 93 million U.S. inhabitants—reported 4,759,438 incidents involving 5,489,485 offenses, 5,790,423 victims, and 4,414,016 known offenders.