ST. LOUIS, Missouri — Missouri led the nation in 2023 with a Black homicide victimization rate more than twice the national average. Illinois followed closely behind, where Black residents were nearly 10 times more likely to be killed than white residents.

The findings come from the Violence Policy Center’s annual report, which analyzes FBI Supplementary Homicide Report data. The numbers expose what researchers call a deadly and disproportionate toll on Black families across the Midwest.

“Unfortunately, statistics are not nuanced,” said Josh Sugarmann, executive director of the Violence Policy Center and author of the study. “They present facts.”

The Violence Policy Center found:

• In Missouri, the Black homicide victimization rate in 2023 was more than twice the national average.

• In Illinois, Black residents were nearly ten times more likely to be killed than white residents.

• Nearly nine in ten Black homicide victims nationwide were killed with guns.

• More than 80 percent knew their killers — reflecting the deeply personal nature of many of these crimes.

St. Louis Circuit Attorney Gabe Gore said the toll on families is crushing. “Every homicide is a tragedy. I can’t even begin to imagine what their grief is.”

He pointed to the demographics of the crisis: “Most of the homicides committed in Saint Louis, consistent with the report, are Black victims — and are very much so young Black men.”

Prosecutors face an uphill battle when cases do move forward. “No doubt 100% our number one barrier to effectively prosecuting homicides is witness cooperation,” Gore said.

Illinois ranked second in the nation. In St. Clair County, Sheriff Rick Watson said gang pressures remain a major driver of youth violence.

“It’s gangs,” Watson said. “A lot of these kids didn’t wanna do anything for the gang, but they get forced into it.”

He added that while many people in St. Louis and Metro East are working to stop the cycle, the problem is overwhelming. “There’s a lot of good people over in Saint Louis that are trying to combat this problem. But they could tell you they’re only gonna get to so many…”

While Gore and Watson focus on the courtroom and jailhouse, Adam “Stadic” Butler and Deveaon “Sahir” Bady take a different approach: showing up on the street corners.

The two men run Show Me Peace, a program that intervenes in neighborhoods just after violence erupts. They don’t wear badges or carry guns. Instead, they lean on their reputations from earlier years.

“People know them for what they used to be,” Butler said about his colleagues. “The respect is there, the credibility is there.”

Bady said their work is about protecting lives before retaliation takes hold. “People are hurting, man. They lost a loved one. They’re vulnerable, exposed. And then the threat of retaliation is always a possibility.”

For Butler, it’s deeply personal. “I’ve seen too many murders, too many shootings, too much violence in my lifetime. My first murder I seen when I was six years old walking to the candy store.”

But today, he says the streets that raised him are the streets he’s determined to reclaim.

“Because I’m not scared. I’m not scared to engage,” Bady said.

Despite the grim local rankings, there is reason for optimism. Nationally, the homicide rate dropped by 12% in 2023, and early 2025 data show killings down another 17% compared to 2024.

Many criminologists point to community-led efforts, federal gun prosecutions, and improved data-driven policing strategies as factors behind the decline. But in cities like St. Louis and East St. Louis, local advocates argue lasting change will only come from within.

As Gore put it: “Most homicides are not random.” The crisis, in other words, is rooted in cycles of violence, and breaking those cycles requires trust that institutions have often failed to build.

St. Louis has long ranked near the top of U.S. cities for homicide rates. East St. Louis, just across the Mississippi River, has faced similar challenges, compounded by poverty and disinvestment. Academics note that the disparities documented in Missouri and Illinois are part of a broader Midwest pattern: Black homicide victimization rates in the region routinely outpace those in other parts of the country.

For researchers, the data lays bare systemic inequities that have spanned generations. For families, each number represents a face, a funeral, a community in mourning.

And for Butler and Bady, it’s the reason they keep walking the blocks many others avoid.