How does Washington, D.C.’s homicide rate compare with other countries?

President Donald Trump said Washington, D.C.’s homicide rate is higher than "the worst places on Earth." 

At an Aug. 11 press conference announcing a federal government takeover of the district’s Metropolitan Police Department and the deployment of National Guard troops to the nation’s capital, Trump displayed several charts comparing D.C.’s homicide rate with cities around the world. 

"The murder rate in Washington today is higher than that of Bogotá, Colombia, Mexico City, some of the places that you hear about as being the worst places on Earth," Trump said. 

"We have DC: 41 per 100,000. No.1 that we can find anywhere in the world," Trump said, holding up a chart comparing homicide rates across capital cities. "Other cities are pretty bad, but they're not as bad as that."

The chart Trump displayed was first shared Aug. 6 on Fox News’ "The Will Cain Show." Trump  didn’t mention that the data in it is from 2023. Since then, the district’s homicide rate has fallen considerably. The rate was not the worst in the world — then or now. 

In 2023, at least 49 other cities in the world had higher homicide rates.

Crime data analyst Jeff Asher said it isn’t useful to compare international cities with populations in the millions to Washington, D.C., a city of about 700,000 people. "A comparison to other large U.S. cities would be more appropriate in my opinion," Asher said.

Washington, D.C.’s homicide rate is influenced in part by the city’s limits, said James Alan Fox, Northeastern University criminology professor. The city limits are "almost completely urban" compared with other major cities such as Philadelphia and New York City, which each "include suburban areas within city limits." 

Crime rates are calculated by dividing the number of crimes by the population. So including a larger population, such as from suburban areas, can moderate crime rates "because they tend to be safer."

Screenshot of President Donald Trump's press conference in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, Aug. 11, 2025.

What is Washington, D.C.’s homicide rate?

In 2024, the most recent data available, the district’s homicide rate was 27.3 per 100,000 people, according to a February report from the Rochester Institute of Technology. It’s a drop from the district’s 2023 homicide rate of 39.4 per 100,000 people. 

The Department of Justice noted this drop in a Jan. 3 press release, saying, "Violent crime for 2024 in the District of Columbia is down 35% from 2023 and is the lowest it has been in over 30 years."

According to DOJ data, the district had 274 homicides in 2023 and 187 in 2024. 

Data from the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia shows a drop in homicides for 2025 year-to-date. As of August 2025, there were 99 homicides compared with 112 homicides at the same time in 2024.   

Is Washington, D.C.’s homicide rate the highest of any city in the world? 

The chart Trump displayed showed the district’s 2023 homicide rate. But it did not have the highest homicide rate of cities around the world that year. 

The Igarapé Institute, a Brazilian nonprofit organization, monitors homicide rates around the world. In its most recent data from 2023, 49 cities around the world had higher homicide rates than Washington, D.C. 

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Of those 49 cities, three are capital cities — Cape Town, South Africa; Kingston and St. Andrew, Jamaica; and Caracas, Venezuela. Trump specifically compared Washington, D.C.’s homicide rate with Bogotá, Colombia, and Mexico City. The district had a higher 2023 homicide rate than those two places.

There are limitations to comparing crime statistics with other countries, Fox said.

"Crime data in some foreign cities is of questionable accuracy," he said.

Fox added that the U.S. has high homicide rates compared with other countries, largely because of the "proliferation of guns" in the U.S.

Washington, D.C.’s homicide rate isn’t even the highest in the U.S. Per the February Rochester Institute of Technology report, the district has the fourth highest homicide rate in the U.S. after St. Louis, New Orleans and Detroit.

Our ruling

Speaking about Washington, D.C., homicide rates, Trump said it’s "41 per 100,000. No.1 that we can find anywhere in the world."

Trump stretched an outdated homicide rate into an inaccurate blanket statement.

Trump appeared to be referring to a chart that showed the district’s 2023 homicide rate, which was 39.4 per 100,000 people. In 2024, the homicide rate dropped to 27.3 per 100,000 people. The city’s Metropolitan Police Department has reported that homicide rates continue to decrease in 2025.

A list of 2023 homicide rates in cities around the world has Washington, D.C., listed below 49 other cities, three of them capital cities.

We rate Trump’s statement False.