Two of the Top 10 Most Dangerous Cities Under 200,000 in Illinois

A new analysis of the FBI's latest crime data ranked two Illinois cities among the nation's Top 10 most dangerous with populations under 200,000.

Law Street Media's "Crime in America 2016" rankings, which uses the FBI's 2014 violent crimes statistics, show crime rates nationwide dropped by roughly 1 percent over the year.

From Law Street on its methodology:

Law Street used the FBI's four major violent crime categories - murders, aggravated assaults, robberies, and rapes - to create a standard measure of violent-crimes-per-100,000 people among all cities reporting crime data to the FBI. This allows year-to-year and city-to-city comparisons. To derive the ratio, the total number of violent crimes reported to the FBI is divided by the city's population, with the result then multiplied by 100,000. The formula for this calculation is shown below:

Violent Crime Rate = (Total Violent Crime in a City/City Population) x 100,000. Crime ratings were further broken down by population, with 200,000 used as the dividing point.

Illinois is one of three states to have multiple cities appear on the list. The violent crime rate in the state capital increased 5 percent over the year, propelling Springfield from the No. 11 spot the previous year to No. 7 in this year's rankings. The number of rapes increased by 26 to 97, which Law Street says could be a result of the FBI's revised and broader definition of rape.

Despite a 10 percent decrease in its violent crime rate, Rockford remains the second most dangerous city with a population below 200,000. Incidences of rapes, robberies and aggravated assaults all declined, including the number of murders, which dropped from 19 to 17 over the year.

Here are the 10 most dangerous cities with populations under 200,000, along with each city's murder rate, officer to population ratio and last year's rank.

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