The most dangerous city in the most dangerous state

American Thinker ^ | 02/28/2025 | Charles Sullivan

[SeekAndFind]

Last September, the FBI released its national crime statistics for 2023.  The numbers for New Mexico can be described only as catastrophic.

New Mexico had the highest per capita rate for violent crime of any state at 7.8 incidents per thousand and the highest rate for any state for property crime at 29.84 per thousand.  Violent crime includes the offenses of aggravated assault, homicide, rape, and robbery.  Property crime includes arson, burglary, larceny-theft, and motor vehicle theft.

I wanted to do a deeper dive into the crime stats for New Mexico’s five largest cities and compare those stats to the national averages and the figures for El Paso. Here are four tables.

FBI Crime Stats for 2023

City	Population	All Violent Crime	Per 1,000	National average per 1,000
Albuquerque	560,274	7,408	13.22	3.64
Las Cruces	114,892	671	5.84	3.64
Rio Rancho	110,660	453	4.09	3.64
Santa Fe	89,167	766	8.59	3.64
Roswell	47,109	429	9.11	3.64
El Paso	678,958	2,294	3.38	3.64

• All of the five New Mexico cities had violent crime rates above the national average.
• Albuquerque’s rate of 13.22 was 263% higher than the national average of 3.64.
• El Paso has nearly 119,000 more residents than Albuquerque but had 5,114 fewer reported violent crimes.
• Albuquerque’s reported violent crime rate of 13.22 per thousand is 291% higher than El Paso’s rate of 3.38 per thousand.

City	Population	All Property Crime	Per 1,000	National average per 1,000
Albuquerque	560,274	26,788	47.81	19.17
Las Cruces	114,892	6,297	54.81	19.17
Rio Rancho	110,660	1,639	14.81	19.17
Santa Fe	89,167	4,453	49.94	19.17
Roswell	47,109	1,348	28.61	19.17
El Paso	678,958	11,084	16.33	19.17

• Albuquerque’s all property crime rate of 47.81 per thousand is 149% higher than the national rate of 19.17 per thousand.
• Each of the New Mexico five cities other than Rio Rancho exceeded the national average rate of 19.17.
• El Paso has nearly 119,000 more residents than Albuquerque but had 15,704 fewer reported property crimes.
• Albuquerque’s reported property crime rate of 47.81 per thousand is 193% higher than El Paso’s rate of 16.33 per thousand.

[MNJohnnie]

Rabidly Alt Leftist Gov and legislature. Estimated 30% of the population are illegals

You got what you voted for NM.

[packagingguy]

It’s Memphis in the desert!

[Libloather]

Never miss that left turn in Albuquerque.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Our daughter works for a company based in ABQ and goes there several times a year on business. I knew crime was bad in ABQ, but not THIS bad. I just sent her the table in your post and told her to ramp up her care.

[Sparticus]

Never miss that left turn in Albuquerque.

Word, Doc!

[Dr. Sivana]

I would have thought that crime would be down in New Mexico, expecially ALbuquerque, with Gus Fring, Walter White, the Salamancas, and Nacho Varga out of the picture. Also, Saul Goodman is still serving time.

[V_TWIN]

I knew Albuquerque would be #1 before I even looked.

Breaking Bad wasn’t all fiction 😏

[lp boonie]

Gangs own Albuquerque.

[Red6]

Massive Latino population and illegals.

Look at crime and the murder rate South of the US border: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a0/World_map_of_homicide_rates_per_100%2C000_people.png/1024px-World_map_of_homicide_rates_per_100%2C000_people.png

When people leave one nation and resettle to a new nation, SOME assimilate, but especially in the West where assimilation has been replaced with multiculturalism, that does not generally occur (why Spanish is a common language in these areas also).

What you really get, is that people leave the Middle East, Africa, or Latin America and resettle in the US but bring all their cultural values and norms with them.

Some of that is nice: the dance, food, a family oriented culture, Christian values (for the most part)...

But some of it is bad: crime, corruption, a socialist world view (even though they are mostly Catholics).

[Marko413]

Roswell? Would they say the issue has to do with “aliens”?

Couldn’t resist.

[spincaster]

That has nothing to do with illegal crossings ,I’m sure.

[Turbo Pig]

I’ve concealed carry for 2 decades. I’ve only felt like I was going to have to pull my weapon twice; shirt pulled up and hand resting on the grip. Both times were in Albuquerque, as we were stopped to get fuel on trips.

[gibsonguy]

The rats are in total control of NM, can you tell?

[George from New England]

Lovely governor there !!

[Carry_Okie]

Rabidly Alt Leftist Gov and legislature. Estimated 30% of the population are illegals

You got what you they voted for NM.

Fixed.

You can bet the bureaucracy that counts the votes flipped New Mexico long before Democrats attained an actual nominal majority.

[woodbutcher1963]

Aren’t the also a lot of Native Americans in NM where the reservations are basically Third World Countries?

So many of the reservations out west are just SH#T holes.
I remember driving through the Warm Springs Indian reservation then the Yakama Indian Reservations.
They were both very sad places to see/visit.
The worst place was White Swan, WA.
I went there to visit the sawmill.

[hecticskeptic]

I knew crime was bad in ABQ, but not THIS bad.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That was my reaction as well..... I visited a power plant there a while back and it was such a quick in and out, crime issues weren’t even something I noticed. I’ll be paying more attention before I travel there again.

[xp38]

My only experience with Albuquerque is driving through it on I 40. From that point of view it seemed quite nice for a city.

[Verginius Rufus]

There was a proposal at one time to make El Paso part of New Mexico. Looks like the residents of El Paso are lucky that never happened.