America's 10 most dangerous cities, based on data

Many American cities have long had a reputation for being unsafe, but recent data often show that these ideas are outdated. Homicide rates did increase across the country during the COVID-19 pandemic, but according to a January 2026 report from the Council on Criminal Justice, rates receded 21% between 2024 and 2025—one of the largest declines in American history and potentially the lowest homicide rate since 1900.

Despite this, in the summer of 2025, President Donald Trump deployed National Guard troops into Los Angeles, which a federal judge ruled illegal that September, finding it violated the Posse Comitatus Act. A second ruling that December, which called the deployment "profoundly un-American," again ordered the troops out, and by January 2026 the administration had withdrawn all Guard troops from Los Angeles, Chicago, and Portland. Troops were also deployed to Washington, D.C., some armed, to respond to the "crime emergency," according to the executive order that cited violent crime and homelessness — and unlike the other cities, that deployment was extended in July 2026 to last through the end of Trump's term, on Jan. 20, 2029.

For a reality check, Stacker ranked the 10 most dangerous U.S. cities using WalletHub's 2026 rankings. WalletHub's methodology compared 182 cities, defining safety by risks to home and community, natural disasters, and finances. It evaluated safety on a 100-point scale, with 1 being the most dangerous, and ranked the cities according to their total score. Natural disaster risks included risks like earthquakes and wildfires; the home and community safety category was weighted by factors such as murders, assaults, and drug poisoning deaths. Financial safety risks included aspects like unemployment rates, the rate of uninsured people, and fraud.

The cities named in the crime crackdown were not always consistent with crime data or WalletHub's list. For instance, Washington D.C., which has the lowest violent crime rate in over 30 years, was ranked #11 by WalletHub, and Los Angeles missed this list by a mile at #27 on WalletHub's ranking. Cities that are being threatened with National Guard invasions but also aren't included in the list include Chicago, which President Trump called "the worst and most dangerous city in the World, by far" on Truth Social in September 2025, and New York City.

However, Trump has focused on some cities that do make the list, like Baltimore, Memphis, and New Orleans—whose governor welcomed "Trump's help." Read on to see where those three cities rank among the 10 most dangerous in the U.S.—and which other ones made the list.