Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness Against Thy Neighbor

I looked for statistics on perjury convictions by state but was unable to find any.  So, I'm a bit stumped about how to quantify bearing false witness.  So, instead, I'm offering you a map looking at the overall violent crime rate for 2012.  Violent crimes include reported murders, rapes, and aggravated assaults.  Again, I've excluded DC -which again has the highest violent crime rate- because its crime rates are more indicative of a city than a state.

The southern tier of states overall have higher violent crime rates -as does Alaska.  Let's look a bit deeper into specific types of violent crimes.

Murder rates are highest in Louisiana and Mississippi and lowest in Vermont and New Hampshire.

The pattern is different for rapes with the Plains states and Alaska having higher rape rates compared to the lower rates along the East Coast and California.

Finally, let's look at aggravated assault.  This crime focuses on intentional bodily attacks on another person. In all states, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon brings greater penalties than simple assault.  The central South stands out here with Tennessee having a much higher crime rate for assault in 2012.

Of note are the similar patterns for violent crime overall, murder, and aggravated assault.  Rape rates, however, stand out as a different pattern to crime.