All offenses in the violent crime category, including murder, rape, aggravated assault and robbery, showed decreases in the first six months of 2014 compared to the same period in 2013, the FBI report says. 

Tennessee topped the list of the FBI's rankings of states with violent crime, followed by Nevada and Alaska. While these rankings do not account for many different factors – grouping crime by state can be simplistic and ignore factors that influence crime, the FBI warns – many states with the highest and lowest rates have remained consistent for many years. 

The number of violent crimes, however, increased 0.7 percent in 2012, with an estimated 1,214,462 violent crimes.