The 10 Most Dangerous Cities In Missouri

The 10 Most Dangerous Places To Live In Missouri For 2024

You certainly won’t find Berkeley on our list of the best St. Louis suburbs and crime is a big reason why.

Berkeley hasplenty of parks, but we wouldn’t recommend visiting them alone or after dark, considering the crime.

Berkeley averaged just under two violent crimes per week and more than one property crime per day in 2022, but the really crazy thing here is the prevalence of car theft. Berkeley’s population is just 8,078, but 254 of those people had their cars robbed in 2022.

Known as the home of the the Gateway Arch, St. Louis is also a gateway to high crime rates. St. Louis is Missouri’s sixth most violent city, recording 4,212 rapes, murders, robberies, and assaults over 2022.

St. Louis stands out by having the third highest murder rate in Missouri by a wide margin, recording one murder about every other day over the year.

Your car isn’t even safe in St. Louis, considering 7,294 people had their cars stolen in St. Louis in 2022. And that only represents a fraction of the 20,750 property crimes committed.

Located just outside of St. Louis, Vinita Park ranks as Missouri’s third least safe city. Don’t let Vinita Park’s small size fool you — having 9 murders in 2022 means that the city actually had the highest murder rate in the state.

Overall, residents had a 1 in 83 chance of being the victim of a violent crime in 2022. We don’t envy the workload of the Vinita Park Police Department.

Not only do they have to contend with such high rates of violence, but also Vinita Park’s crazy high burglary rate, which ranked as the third highest in Missouri.

Kansas City is used to winning by now, between the Chiefs and the Royals. But getting used to high rates of crime is another matter.

Missouri’s biggest city had the seventh highest murder rate in 2022, recording about three per week on average. Overall, residents had a 1 in 67 chance of being the victim of a violent attack over the year.

On the flip-side, the property crime rate in Kansas City is the lowest on this list. And, being a big place, if you stick to Kansas City’s safest neighborhoods, you should be fine.

Hey! We’re headed to Nevada! Stack those chips and call the buffets, it’s time for one of those “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” type of vacations.

Wait…what? This is Nevada, Missouri. Alright, not the trip we had planned, but it could still be fun. After all, there’s a Bushwhacker Museum and a golf course.

But, unfortunately, there’s also a pronounced crime problem. Violent crime represents a particular issue. With a population of just 8,182 people, this Nevada suffered 52 aggravated assaults and 22 sexual assaults.

Missouri’s third-biggest city, Springfield, ranks as the sixth most dangerous place to call home in the state. While Springfield didn’t rank #1 in violent or property crime per capita, seventh highest and 12th highest place rankings for violent and property crime land it at the top of this list.

Springfield had the 11th highest rate of rape cases in Missouri for 2022. On top of that, Springfield had the seventh highest burglary rate in Missouri, so it’s a good idea to lock your doors here.

Overall, residents had a 1 in 20 chance of being the victim of a property crime over 2022, so you’ll want to watch your wallets and purses when you’re strolling around Nathanial Greene/Close Memorial Park.

Richmond Heights, located in St. Louis County, Missouri, is ranked as the seventh most dangerous place to live in the state for 2024. The city has experienced 53 violent crimes, including 0 murders, 1 rapes, 12 robberies, and 40 aggravated assaults.

Property crime is also a concern for this inner-ring suburb of St. Louis, with 608 incidents reported in the city. The high incidence of both violent and property crimes has led to Richmond Heights being ranked third highest in the state for property crime.

Located on the outskirts of St. Louis, Bridgeton consistently housed fewer than 200 residents in the decades before 1950. Then — boom! — a massive expansion during the following decades.

By 1970, almost 20,000 people lived in a bustling suburb on the northwest edge of St. Louis’ urban sprawl. Unfortunately, it’s been a slow downward trajectory from that peak. Nowadays, the town has 11,342 people and a reputation as the number 8 most dangerous cities in Missouri.

A high rate of theft contributes to this ranking. Overall, 673 property crimes took place over a year.

We turn to the Bootheel Region of Missouri’s southeastern corner to reach its ninth most dangerous city for 2024, Caruthersville.

Overall, property crime in Caruthersville is lower than most places on this list. However, the city did have the second highest burglary rate in Missouri, with 52 cases recorded in 2022 — absurdly high for a city of just 5,212.

Caruthersville also had Missouri’s second highest violent crime rate, with about one aggravated assault per week on average in 2022. So don’t try any fancy card-counting tactics at Century Casino, or you might end up one of these assault victims.

These days, almost everyone has heard of Ferguson. This suburb of St. Louis made national headlines in 2014 when the killing of Michael Brown by a police officer sparked waves of protests and looting.

Unfortunately, the added attention has done little to heal the underlying social problems that led to the unrest. These issues have far from disappeared since the incident faded from people’s Twitter feeds. The people of Ferguson still toil in the number 10 most dangerous community in Missouri. Much of the problem centers around property crime. That includes a high rate of car thefts, robberies and burglaries.

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