Are there a lot of homicides in Los Angeles?
A note to readers: This portion of the FAQ was written in 2007, and all figures should be taken in that context. We will attempt to update this document with more current information as time allows.Not particularly, although it depends on the point of comparison. To be sure, the raw number of homicides is large, making for a lengthy list on The Homicide Report. But that’s mostly because of the size of the population. Big populations make for big statistics; thus L.A. County accounted for 43% of the total number of homicides in California in 2005, and about 6% of all the homicides in the nation. Measured as a rate per capita, though, the number of homicides here is pretty middling. Among major cities, L.A. city ranked 16th in the nation in homicide rates, according to a list compiled by the Los Angeles Police Department. (L.A. County’s rates are similar to the city’s.) With about 13 deaths annually for every 100,000 people last year, the city of L.A. was tied with San Francisco and Bost
