Bardstown, KY has a B safety grade (71/100) with a violent crime rate of 165 per 100,000, 53% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · mid-size city
Bardstown (13,917 people) sits in the mid-size municipal band. This page opens with per-100,000 FBI UCR rates, then KY and national benchmarks.
Data updated 2026-08-24
Bardstown, KY carries a PlainCrime B safety grade with violent crime 53% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Bardstown, KY shows violent crime at 165.3 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 1,394 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 53% below the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade B from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
Small-count caution
Bardstown reported 23 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 13,917. At this volume one additional or one fewer report moves the per-100,000 rate noticeably, so the figure is better read as a data point than as a precise measurement, and year-to-year swings here are expected.
Comparable rate records
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Bardstown's 165.3 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Winchester (165.9), Heritage Creek (166.5), Hillview (167.6), Glasgow (168.7). These are same-year agency submissions that pass the same completeness screen, not a claim that the cities have identical conditions. They make the cohort position above checkable against named records instead of a generic state average.
Position in the state cohort
At 165.3 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Bardstown ranks 53 of 231 — above 178 of the 230 other Kentucky cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +148.9% against the cohort median of 66.4. Cities that did not report, or that reported implausibly low totals, are excluded from this cohort rather than counted as low-crime.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 210.1 per 100,000 in 2020 to 165.3 in 2024 (-21.3%). The highest observed value was 210.1 in 2020 and the lowest 115.8 in 2023. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property counts dominate Bardstown's FBI UCR Table 8 municipal row. Per-100,000 rates use the reporting-year population on that row; cities that fail the completeness test stay out of rate rankings. A citywide figure rarely describes any single neighbourhood inside the municipal boundary.
Based on 23 reported violent incidents in a population of 13,917. At this volume, one additional or one fewer report can shift the rate and letter grade noticeably; small-city crime counts are inherently more volatile year to year than large-city counts, so treat this grade as a data point, not a precise ranking.
Mid-size municipal totals above are reported offenses, not safety advice for any single block. Reporting completeness still varies by year and agency.
Across 12.1 Census sq mi, Bardstown logged 16 property and 1.9 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Bardstown's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (66% of 217 offenses; mix index 4,664).
Violent offenses are only 11% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Bardstown offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (12.1 sq mi); mix index is HHI x 10,000 on the offense-type shares above. Distinct from the per-100K rates in the hero.
| Offense | Count | Rate /100K |
|---|---|---|
| Property Crime | 194 | 1394 |
| Larceny-Theft | 143 | 1027.5 |
| Burglary | 27 | 194 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 24 | 172.5 |
| Arson | 1 | 7.2 |
| Violent Crime | 23 | 165.3 |
| Aggravated Assault | 12 | 86.2 |
| Robbery | 7 | 50.3 |
| Rape | 4 | 28.7 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
Lead series · fell across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · fell · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 13,330 | 210.1 | 2048 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 13,378 | 119.6 | 2459.3 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 13,712 | 138.6 | 1713.8 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 13,820 | 115.8 | 2286.5 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 13,917 | 165.3 | 1394 |
Bardstown Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Bardstown's 217 reported offenses (5-year span 2020-2024).
This agency reports via NIBRS, the incident-based system that captures more detail per offense (multiple crimes per incident, victim/offender data) than the older summary counts.
Crime rates read differently at different scales, so these are the Kentucky cities closest to Bardstown in population. Their populations run from 11,724 to 16,135, against 13,917 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Bardstown sits at 165.3/100K violent (grade B); the Kentucky cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Bardstown at 165.3/100K violent and 1,394/100K property - matched below outside Kentucky (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
165.3/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
1,394/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
In 2024, Bardstown reported 23 violent crimes and 194 property crimes, for a total of 217 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Bardstown's violent crime rate increased by 42.7%, and the property crime rate decreased by 39%.
The most common crime type in Bardstown is larceny-theft, accounting for 65.9% of all reported crimes (143 incidents in 2024).
Mid-size read: Bardstown figures are FBI UCR CIUS Table 8 (vintage 2024), population-adjusted per 100,000.
Denominators are the reporting-year population on the municipal row. Incomplete years are dropped from rankings. Confirm at FBI Crime Data Explorer and Census.gov QuickFacts.
Disclaimer (mid-size municipal): figures are informational, not advice. FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program is the source. Consult a professional before decisions.
Mid-size rate methodology for how Bardstown's mid-size city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Bardstown, KY rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.
Bulk download: city crime dataset (CSV/JSON)
Every figure on PlainCrime is rendered directly from FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) source data, no number is typed in by an editor. Bardstown is scored in the mid-size municipal band (13,917 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.