LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Recent statistics show that violent crime in Little Rock has grown quickly.

Statistics released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on Oct. 5 show that violent crime in Arkansas and Little Rock is increasing quickly. The statistics are part of the agency’s annual Crime in the Nation report.

The FBI report is from offenses reported to its Uniform Crime Reporting program. For Arkansas, 285 of its 308 law enforcement agencies, including Little Rock police, report crime rates to this program.

Violent crime began rising nationally in 2019 when 280,326 incidents were reported. In 2021 the reported number of violent crimes was 468,832, a 67% increase. For the same period, Arkansas saw a 16% increase, with 14,040 incidents in 2019 to 16,275 incidents in 2021.

For Little Rock, violent crime dropped from 2017 to 2018, from 2,432 violent crimes to 2,201. Then violent crime began steadily climbing to 3,007 violent crime incidents in 2021, a 36% increase from 2018.

Homicide reflects an even steeper climb for Little Rock, with 31 incidents in 2019, its lowest year since 2015, followed by a steady rise to 60 in 2021, nearly double over the 12 years. Little Rock currently has 64 homicides for 2022.

Capitol City’s highest year for homicide since 1960 was 1993 when 70 homicides were reported.

In a study by WalletHub, Little Rock ranked 163rd of 180 American cities for safety. Little Rock ranked at the top of the Most Assaults per Capita category in a five-way per-capita tie with Birmingham, St. Louis, Detroit and Memphis in the study.

The FBI stats show Little Rock had 1,606 aggravated assaults in 2019, marking the end of a relatively stable period, increasing by 43% in 2021 with 2,301 reports of the same crime.

An aggravated assault is the only type that is a felony in Arkansas. It is punishable by up to six years in prison and a $10,000 fine.