Study: Illinois has the second lowest recorded crime rate in the US

Expert reveals Illinois has the second lowest crime rate in the US

Pennsylvania has the lowest crime rate with an average of 315 incidents per 100,000 people each year.
Illinois and New York have the second and third-lowest crime rates, respectively.

A new study reveals that Pennsylvania is the state with the lowest crime rate, based on the average number of reported incidents per 100,000 people. Illinois takes second place out of all states included in the list.

California based criminal defense law firm Simmrin Law Group analyzed the reported number of crime incidents between 2019 – 2021 for 47 states for which data was available and compared this with state population size to determine the average number of incidents per 100,000 people.

Related Report by Axios: Violent crime has plunged in Illinois over last 30 years

Pennsylvania takes the top spot with an average of 315 incidents per 100,000 people between 2019 – 2021. It had a total of 122,858 reported incidents across these three years, with some of the lowest numbers of any state across 2019 and 2020.

Illinois ranked second with an average of 695 incidents per 100,000 people. It had a total of 264,780 incidents between 2019 – 2021, with the majority of those incidents reported in 2021 compared to previous years.

New York comes third with an average of 825 incidents per 100,000 people. It had a total of 485,282 reported incidents between 2019 – 2021, with most incidents occurring during 2019 in contrast to other states.

Maryland is fourth with an average of 930 incidents per 100,000 people between 2019 and 2021.

Arizona came close behind in fifth with an average of 1,100 incidents per 100k people.

Michael Simmrin, Managing Partner and Founder of Simmrin Law Group, commented on the findings:

“This study highlights the rise and fall of reported crime incidents per 100,000 people each year across the United States. It is important to note that these results are based on figures released to the public, so there may be incidents that were not recorded and are therefore unaccounted for.

“Notably, the studied years cover the beginning and end of the COVID-19 pandemic period, which could explain the drop in reported incidents that some states experienced after 2019. Overall, it will be interesting to see how drastically this ranking might evolve as the figures for subsequent years become available.”

Top ten US states with the lowest crime rates:

Rank	State	Incidents per 100,000 people (2021)	Incidents per 100,000 people (2020)	Incidents per 100,000 people (2019)	Average Incidents per 100,000 people
1.	Pennsylvania	920	8	17	315
2.	Illinois	1,889	97	100	695
3.	New York	548	203	1,726	825
4.	Maryland	1,355	733	701	930
5.	Arizona	2,067	952	280	1,100
6.	Wyoming	3,199	566	239	1,335
7.	Alabama	3,767	257	80	1,368
8.	Mississippi	2,756	2,058	1,342	2,052
9.	Louisiana	3,691	1,472	1,006	2,056
10.	Nebraska	2,877	1,550	1,786	2,071