Crime & Safety in Arkansas
Arkansas's statewide crime picture is a real, current, and genuine weakness this record discloses directly -- a 2024 violent crime rate of 579 per 100,000, 61.3% above the national average -- and this record discloses a real, honest nuance rather than treating that figure as uniform: Little Rock specifically runs meaningfully higher, even as it fell in 2024, while more than half of Arkansas's twenty safest cities per one 2025 ranking sit in fast-growing Northwest Arkansas.
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Learn moreA real, current statewide weakness: 579 per 100,000, 61.3% above the national average
Arkansas's statewide crime picture is a real, current, and genuine weakness this record discloses directly: this pass's 2026 research, drawing on 2024 FBI-sourced crime data, found a statewide violent crime rate of 579 per 100,000 residents -- genuinely 61.3% above the national average of 380 per 100,000, and the 4th-highest among all states, detailed fully in arkansas.js's own crime metrics and corroborated by U.S. News's #49-nationally Crime & Corrections ranking.
Little Rock runs a genuinely higher rate than the statewide figure, even as it fell in 2024
This record discloses a real, honest nuance rather than treating the statewide figure as describing every Arkansas city equally: this pass's research found Little Rock's own 2024 violent crime rate ran meaningfully above the statewide figure by one secondary crime-data aggregator's measure -- a single-source finding this record discloses with appropriate caution given a methodology this pass did not independently cross-check against arkansas.js's own primary FBI-sourced statewide figure. That same source found a real, genuine positive trend within Little Rock specifically: 37 homicides in 2024, a 42% decrease from 64 in 2023, alongside an overall 5.9% year-over-year decline in violent crime.
More than half of Arkansas's safest cities per one 2025 ranking sit in Northwest Arkansas
By real, disclosed contrast, this pass's research found one 2025 safest-cities analysis placed more than half of Arkansas's top 20 safest cities in Northwest Arkansas specifically, with Bella Vista cited as the state's safest mid-to-large city (a violent crime rate of 1.2 per 1,000 residents in that analysis) and Bentonville and Rogers both described as low-violent-crime communities -- a real, genuinely different regional safety profile this record does not flatten into one statewide story.
Confirm current, local crime data for your specific target community
As in every state, a statewide figure does not describe every Arkansas city, county, or neighborhood identically -- confirm current, local crime statistics directly for your specific target community rather than relying on the statewide figure alone, particularly given the real, disclosed gap this pass's research found between Little Rock's own city-level rate and Northwest Arkansas's safer-city showing.
Key takeaways
- Arkansas's 2024 statewide violent crime rate ran a real, current 579 per 100,000 -- genuinely 61.3% above the national average, and the 4th-highest among all states -- a genuine, disclosed weakness.
- Little Rock's own city-level rate ran meaningfully above the statewide figure by one secondary source's measure, even as the city's homicides fell 42% in 2024 (37, down from 64 in 2023) and violent crime overall fell 5.9%.
- More than half of Arkansas's top 20 safest cities per one 2025 ranking sit in Northwest Arkansas, with Bella Vista cited as the state's safest mid-to-large city and Bentonville and Rogers both described as low-crime.
- Statewide weakness coexists with real regional and city-level variation -- confirm current, local crime data directly for your specific target Arkansas community.
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