Per the recently released Summary of Reported Crimes in the Nation, there were an estimated 359.1 violent crimes per 100,000 inhabitants in 2024, of which aggravated assaults accounted for 71.3%, robbery 16.9%; rape 10.4%, and murder 1.4%. Most assault and rape offenders were known to the victim, in contrast to just a fifth of robbery offenders*. That may be one reason why public safety concerns are often linked to the perceived likelihood of getting robbed. “Are the street safe where you live” is less likely to evoke images of partner violence than of getting attacked and robbed by a stranger.

Note the FBI classifies a crime as robbery and not assault if the person is attacked in the course of a robbery or attempted robbery. Here’s the full definition:

Robbery is the taking or attempting to take anything of value from the care, custody, or control of a person or persons by force or threat of force or violence and/or by putting the victim in fear. When aggravated assault and larceny-theft occur together, the offense falls under the category of robbery.

Oakland is the robbery capital of America, with a rate of 680 robberies per 100,000 population in 2024. No wonder Oakland residents are scared. Check it out:

The robbery situation is much better in much of the rest of the country, with a national rate of 60.6 robberies per 100,000 inhabitants and a median rate of 85 in the 200 largest US cities. Olathe, Kansas had the lowest robbery rate of these cities, at 5.6 per 100,000 in 2024. Here’s more on the best and worst of them:

The good news is that robberies are going down in America. Here’s a chart documenting the decline since 2005:

The bad news is that violent crime, including robbery, is still way too high in our big cities.

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* Since murder victims cannot identify their killer, the percent known to the victim is bit less certain.

References:

An Assessment of Measure Z in Oakland,  Ashlin Oglesby-Neal, KiDeuk Kim, Sam Tecotzky, and Josh Fording/The Urban Institute, May 2025. https://www.urban.org/research/publication/assessment-measure-z-Oakland

UCR [Uniform Crime Reporting] Summary of Reported Crimes in the Nation: 2024, U.S. Department of Justice—Federal Bureau of Investigation Released Summer 2025 (accessed online on 9/26/25 but was unavailable on 9/28/2025)

Wikipedia: Cities by Crime Rate.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_crime_rate#cite_note-CDE-1