This matches data we collected from a sample of agencies from 60 large cities showing a 36 percent increase in murders in those cities, as well as a Council on Criminal Justice analysis from 34 cities finding a 30 percent increase in 2020 compared to 2019. Murders were up at least 15 percent through September in cities of every population group, according to the FBI’s data, and the change in murders was larger in towns with under 10,000 people (up 31 percent) than in cities with over 1 million people (up 29 percent).