Assault in America: New 2023 Study Maps Where Violence Clusters

In a nation grappling with everyday violence, a new analysis from Farmer & Morris of 2023 data shows the United States recorded 3.25 million assault offenses: 2,437,206 simple assaults and 818,908 aggravated assaults. As defined by the FBI, simple assault is a physical attack or threat without a weapon that does not cause serious injury (e.g., a shove or slap). Aggravated assault involves an attack intended to inflict severe harm, often with a weapon such as a gun or knife.

The report pinpoints where assaults are most prevalent, which weapons are most often used, which regions and states bear the heaviest burden, where assaults happen most frequently, and what interventions would meaningfully lower the numbers.

Aggravated Assault: A Deadlier Share of Harm

Although simple assault is far more common by volume, aggravated assaults pose the gravest threat to public safety because they frequently involve weapons. In 2023, about 1.9 million simple assaults involved weaponized body parts (fists, hands, feet). By contrast, aggravated assaults more often included external weapons, notably firearms and cutting instruments, driving up severity and medical consequences.

Weapons Most Frequently Used

The weapon breakdown underscores two parallel crises, gun violence and hand-to-hand violence:

• Handguns: 165,261 incidents
• Weaponized body parts (fists/hands/feet): 161,409 incidents
• Knives/cutting instruments: 131,764 incidents
• Unspecified firearms: 103,799 incidents
• Other weapons (improvised/less common items): 80,703 incidents

Together, these categories comprise the overwhelming majority of weapon-involved assaults and highlight the need for firearm injury prevention and conflict de-escalation strategies that address both guns and physical-force assaults.

Where Violence Clusters: Regional Disparities

Assaults were not evenly distributed across the United States in 2023:

• South: 1,587,736 offenses
• Midwest: 848,984
• West: 682,372
• Northeast: 528,043

The South alone accounts for over 43% of all U.S. assaults, nearly double the Midwest and more than double the West, pointing to region-specific conditions (population, poverty, gun access, reporting practices) that require tailored interventions. The Northeast, despite dense urban centers, recorded the fewest offenses, suggesting differences in infrastructure, policy, or social supports.

State Totals and Per-Capita Risk

By raw numbers, assaults concentrated in a handful of states:

• Texas: 436,908
• New York: 274,089
• California: 254,705
• Illinois: 181,315 • Michigan: 152,586 • Ohio: 147,859
• Tennessee: 139,418 • North Carolina: 138,504 • Georgia: 121,658 • Virginia: 106,764

When adjusted for population, a different picture emerges. The District of Columbia topped the nation with 3,405 assaults per 100,000 residents, followed by Tennessee (1,951), Arkansas (1,947), Nevada (1,864), New Mexico (1,823), South Carolina (1,750), Oklahoma (1,548), Michigan (1,519), Delaware (1,570), and Kansas (1,524). The per-capita lens shows how smaller or mid-sized states can face disproportionate risk, especially in the South and Southwest.

Where Assaults Happen Most

Violence often occurs in everyday places:

• Residences/Homes: 439,000+ incidents (by far the most)
• Roadways/Sidewalks: ~174,000
• Parking lots/garages: 47,315
• Other/Unknown: 23,551
• Hotels/Motels: 12,513

These figures confirm that assaults are primarily domestic and community-adjacent problems, not confined to “dark alleys,” but present in homes, streets, and transitional spaces like parking facilities.

What Works: A Practical Blueprint

The report outlines a multi-layer prevention strategy aligned to how and where assaults occur:

1. Domestic Violence Focus: Expand shelter capacity, legal advocacy, lethality assessments, and firearm relinquishment protocols tied to protective orders.
2. Hot-Spot Place Safety: Improve lighting, sightlines, cameras, and security patrols in parking lots and roadways; apply CPTED (Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design).
3. Violence Interruption: Fund community-based interrupters and hospital-based violence intervention programs to break retaliation cycles.
4. Behavioral Health & Substance Use: Increase mobile crisis teams, co-responder models, and rapid access to mental-health and SUD care.
5. Youth Prevention: Mentor programs, school-based conflict resolution, and pathways to work/skills in high-rate zip codes.
6. Gun Injury Prevention: Safe storage campaigns, risk-protection order implementation, and focused deterrence for the small networks driving gun assaults.
7. Data-Driven Policing + Guardrails: Target micro-locations with high rates while maintaining accountability and transparency.
8. Civil Legal Remedies: Streamlined protective orders, landlord nuisance abatement against violent premises, and employer safety plans for at-risk workers.

“Assault is not inevitable,” the report concludes. “It’s predictable and preventable when communities align public health, civil legal tools, and focused enforcement with place-based safety.”