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Missouri is the deadliest state in U.S. for Black homicide victims. Kansas is close behind

St. Louis Public Radio | By Rachel Lippmann

Published August 1, 2025 at 4:00 AM CDT

Officers from the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department investigate a homicide in midtown St. Louis in 2023. A new report found that in that year, Missouri's Black homicide victimization rate was more than twice the rate nationwide.

Missouri's homicide victimization rate for its Black residents was 54.9 deaths per 100,000 people in 2023, more than twice the national rate. The Violence Policy Center has issued the report for 20 years and Missouri has been either first or second every time.

The state of Missouri once again leads the nation in Black homicide victimization rates.

The Violence Policy Center used 2023 data from the FBI and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to put together its regular analysis of homicide victimization in the country. In Missouri in 2023, the victimization rate for Black people was 54.9 per 100,000 people, compared to the national rate for Black people of 26.6 per 100,000.

"Looking at the numbers themselves, in 2023, 400 Missourians died who were Black homicide victims," said Josh Sugarmann, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit.

State data show there were a total of 608 homicide victims in Missouri in 2023.

The center has issued the report for 20 years, and Missouri has been either first or second every time, Sugarmann said. This year, Illinois, Louisiana, Wisconsin, Kansas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Indiana, Mississippi and Alabama round up the top 10.

All of those states except Illinois have what are known as preemption laws, which limit gun regulation, Sugarmann said.

"Even if cities or communities across the state want to enact specific laws to protect their citizens from gun violence, they're not allowed to," he said. "Any action can only happen on the state level."

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Recently, a judge in St. Louis struck down a city ordinance that required gun owners to lock up their firearms if they planned to leave them in parked cars.

The overall homicide victimization rate for all populations in the United States was 7.1 per 100,000 people – meaning the rate for Black people across the county was more than four times higher.

Socioeconomic factors play a large role in the level of violence people experience, said Washington University sociology professor Darwin Baluran.

"Things like concentrated poverty, residential segregation, lack of lawful employment, those things kind of lead to violence, which then leads to higher homicide rates," he said.

Baluran added that some of those factors, such as residential segregation, are particularly pronounced in the states with the highest Black homicide victimization rates, including Missouri.