Tennessee Crime Statistics


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Steve Bennett
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Tennessee Crime Statistics 2025: Facts about Crime in Tennessee reflect the current socio-economic condition of the state.

tennessee

LLCBuddy editorial team did hours of research, collected all important statistics on Tennessee Crime, and shared those on this page. Our editorial team proofread these to make the data as accurate as possible. We believe you don’t need to check any other resources on the web for the same. You should get everything here only 🙂

Are you planning to start a Tennessee LLC business in 2025? Maybe for educational purposes, business research, or personal curiosity, whatever it is – it’s always a good idea to gather more information.

How much of an impact will Tennessee Crime Statistics have on your day-to-day? or the day-to-day of your LLC Business? How much does it matter directly or indirectly? You should get answers to all your questions here.

Please read the page carefully and don’t miss any word.

Top Tennessee Crime Statistics 2025

☰ Use “CTRL+F” to quickly find statistics. There are total 27 Tennessee Crime Statistics on this page 🙂

Tennessee Crime “Latest” Statistics

  • People in Tennessee are 15% more worried than the average American about the possibility of becoming victims of a violent crime.[1]
  • Compared to the rest of the nation, Tennessee recorded fewer rapes, with sexual assaults making up 7% of all violent crimes as opposed to 8% nationally.[2]
  • Since their peaks in 2012 and 2008, drug and property crime entries in 2018 have decreased by 24%.[3]
  • Roughly 26% of the data reported to the FBI in 2009 came from crime data acquired by NIBRS, which was used by approximately 44% of the countries’ participating law enforcement agencies in the UCR program.[4]
  • Tennessee’s violent crime rate has decreased by 9% since 2019 compared to a 4% regional decrease, outpacing the East South Central area.[2]
  • On average, East Tennessee State University crime and safety-related occurrences resulted in 54.4% of arrests for possession.[5]
  • Tennessee’s violent crimes decreased by 5% from their high in 2009, while all other entries decreased by 21% from their peak in 2012.[3]
  • Violent crime decreased by 3%, and property crime decreased by 6%, from 28.3 incidences per 1,000 to 26.5.[2]
  • Despite having less experience with property crime than the national average, 73% of survey respondents employ some kind of property protection, with weapons being the most popular at 44%.[1]
  • Tennessee witnessed 15% fewer burglaries as a percentage of all property crimes than the U.S. (16%).[1]
  • In 2019, there were 366.7 violent crimes per 100,000 Americans nationwide.[6]
  • FBI statistics show that there were 1.3 million violent crimes recorded in total in 2020, or 388 per 100,000 inhabitants, a 5% rise over 2019.[7]
  • There were 498 murders in Tennessee in 2019, while the state’s poverty rate was projected to be 13.9%.[6]
  • 32.8% of all crimes and safety problems at the school are the result of disciplinary proceedings.[5]
  • In Tennessee, the most frequent violent crime is aggravated assault, which makes up 77% of all recorded violent crimes, or roughly 10% more than the national assault rate.[2]
  • Larceny theft is the most common property crime in Tennessee, but it takes up a larger proportion of property crime in the safest cities (78%) vs 72% for the state and 71% nationally.[1]
  • Although Tennessee’s incidence of violent crime, 6.0 occurrences per 1,000 people, is 62% higher than the national average of 3.7, the safest cities only recorded ten events per 1,000 people.[2]
  • Tennessee’s property crime rate has decreased by 16% since 2019, less than the regional decline of 20% during the same time period.[1]
  • From 2003 to 2018, the average total sentence for drug crimes unrelated to cocaine increased by 63%, from 50 months to 82 months.[3]
  • Crime in the country has decreased gradually, with the current rate of 2,489 per 100,000 being a 58% decrease in 28 years.[8]
  • Tennessee’s overall violent crime rate increased by 13% in 2017 after a slight decline the previous year.[1]
  • Tennessee residents worry about property crime somewhat less than most Americans, although the state’s rate is 27% higher than the national average.[1]

Tennessee Crime “Other” Statistics

  • In 2019, there were about 29,869 break-ins recorded in Tennessee, or 43.7 per 100,000 population, making it the state with the 12th highest rate nationwide.[8]
  • 55% of Tennesseans said that gun violence was their main worry for safety.[2]
  • The predicted national break in rate was 1,117,696, or 341 per 100,000 persons.[8]
  • The highest year-over-year rise in murders on record occurred in 2020, when there were 21,570 murders, up over 30% from 16,669 in 2019.[7]
  • State imprisonment rates for property crimes decreased by 13%, while the rate of state prisoners entering prison for property offenses dropped by 26%.[3]

Also Read

How Dangerous is Tennessee Crime

During my analysis of crime in Tennessee, I have come across various elements that attribute to the states safety issues. The figures paint a disturbing reality, especially with regards to violent and property crime. Tennessee ranks high among the states with both types of crime, and it is important to analyze why these numbers are as they are to understand the safety profile of the state.

Memphis and Nashville have been known to have issues with urbanized violent crime such as homicide, assault, and robbery. According to many estimates, Tennessee seems to be lagging behind compared to the National Average with its crime rates. I have researched the population based factors and socio economic factors which seem to support this. Factors such as lack of educational facilities and economic opportunities seem to have a significant impact on the overall crime rate in the state. A large percentage of the population is caught in these extremes and parts of this world are very much brutal by nature.

Unlike violent crime, property crime in Tennessee commits an equally significant affront against an individual’s safety and security. It includes burglary, larceny-theft, and the theft of vehicles. Urban areas as well as rural regions seem to be experiencing a rise in the rate of property crime cells. In my opinion, the presence of valuable items, lack of active law enforcement, and even the drifting nature of some populations play a role in the problem.

Visitors for example, from cities where there is a lot of tourism, are very often targeted by thieves because they are likely to let their guards down unlike local residents.

Comparing such crime trends provides one a basic insight into the social and economic realities that need to be addressed in Tennessee. Undoubtedly, there are some severe underlying issues, and they can be dealt with only if partners from different sectors contribute their resources and create policies to work on the issue to formulate effective solutions instead of resorting to band-aid solutions where police alone will handle the problem.

These solutions do not aid in making Tennessee any safer. Instead, they serve to illustrate how complex the crime mapping problem really is.

Reference

  1. safewise – https://www.safewise.com/blog/safest-cities-tennessee/
  2. localmemphis – https://www.localmemphis.com/article/news/community/what-are-the-safest-cities-in-tennessee/522-cf3f114a-263a-4afe-a90a-7bb9e93a4592
  3. sycamoreinstitutetn – https://www.sycamoreinstitutetn.org/incarceration-tn-prisoner-trends/
  4. nashville – https://www.nashville.gov/departments/police/news-and-reports/crime-statistics
  5. collegefactual – https://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/east-tennessee-state-university/student-life/crime/
  6. thecentersquare – https://www.thecentersquare.com/tennessee/study-tennessees-violent-crime-rate-3rd-highest-among-50-states/article_c11451ce-86c8-11eb-b8ba-b74440b40f05.html
  7. mainstreet-nashville – https://www.mainstreet-nashville.com/news/report-tennessee-third-worst-state-for-violent-crime/article_7028e402-2626-11ec-90d3-17835096f4d8.html
  8. 247wallst – https://247wallst.com/state/crime-in-tennessee/

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