The MOST Dangerous Small Towns In Alabama
Well, I was born in a small town, and I live in a small town, so I'll probably die in a small town.
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Credit: John Mellencamp via YouTube
Yes, I believe those are the words of one John Mellencamp back in the day when he wrote and sang Small Town, which was a great song.
Small towns aren’t what they used to be, and I’m learning that the hard way. I lived in Northport, Alabama, back in the 1980s when I first moved to Alabama.
I never locked a door, and I never felt unsafe going out at night, regardless of the hour.
It just never seemed like an unsafe place, and I can’t say that now with the same
confidence I once had in my hometown.
A recent study on small towns in America, focusing on Alabama, ranked the top cities based on a single key metric.
The residents are faced with an above-average risk of becoming a crime victim.
The rankings look like this in 2025:
Northport • Crime Rate 356 per 100,000
Decatur • Crime Rate 419 per 100,000
Jasper • Crime Rate 419 per 100,000
Talladega • Crime Rate 647 per 100,000
Opelika • Crime Rate 809 per 100,000
Phenix City • Crime Rate 877 per 100,000
Dothan • Crime Rate 1,052 per 100,000
Bessemer • Crime Rate 1,921 per 100,000
The data compilation primarily relied on violent crime rates, with property crime serving as the tiebreaker metric when necessary.
I live in one of the cities on this list, and I think our law enforcement is doing a great job trying to keep the city as safe as possible.
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