Bennettsville, SC is among the highest-crime cities in the country, and earns an F PlainCrime safety grade, where violent crime runs 183% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Bennettsville, SC shows violent crime at 995.3 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 3,561.4 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 183% above the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade F from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
F safety grade
995.3/100K violent
3561.4/100K property
+183% vs U.S.
What the 2024 FBI UCR record shows for Bennettsville, SC
Comparable rate records
Bennettsville's closest reported-rate comparisons are in the South Carolina cohort
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Bennettsville's 995.3 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Walterboro (1006.4), Union (975.0), Latta (968.5), Manning (1031.2). 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
Bennettsville reported a higher violent-crime rate than most comparable South Carolina cities
At 995.3 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Bennettsville ranks 28 of 149 — above 121 of the 148 other South Carolina cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +140.1% against the cohort median of 414.6. Cities that did not report, or that reported implausibly low totals, are excluded from this cohort rather than counted as low-crime.
Offense mix
Violent offenses make up an unusually large share of the reported mix
Violent offenses are 21.8% of the 293 Part I offenses reported in Bennettsville for 2024, against a median of 14.9% across comparable South Carolina cities — a gap of 6.9 points. Offense mix is shaped by which agencies report and how incidents are classified as well as by the underlying offenses, so it describes the reported record rather than a settled difference in conditions.
2020–2024 direction
The reported violent-crime rate ended the window lower
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 1198.8 per 100,000 in 2020 to 995.3 in 2024 (-17.0%). The highest observed value was 1375.5 in 2023 and the lowest 958.8 in 2021. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property counts dominate Bennettsville'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.
Small-city offense counts above are voluntary UCR submissions, not neighbourhood advice. Year-to-year swings can look large when the population base is modest.
Bennettsville's 2024 municipal footprint
Across 6.2 Census sq mi, Bennettsville logged 37.1 property and 10.4 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Bennettsville's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (61% of 293 offenses; mix index 4,195).
Violent offenses are 22% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (6.2 sq mi); mix index is HHI x 10,000 on the offense-type shares above. Distinct from the per-100K rates in the hero.
Violent rate moved most (2023→2024)
Violent Crime Rate
-27.6%
1375.5 → 995.3/100K
Property Crime Rate
-15.6%
4218.2 → 3561.4/100K
Property offenses lead Bennettsville's 2024 record
Offense
Count
Rate /100K
vs US avg
vs SC
Property Crime
229
3561.4
1711
1988.2
Larceny-Theft
179
2783.8
-
-
Burglary
30
466.6
-
-
Motor Vehicle Theft
20
311
-
-
Arson
1
15.6
-
-
Violent Crime
64
995.3
352
439.3
Aggravated Assault
51
793.2
-
-
Robbery
7
108.9
-
-
Rape
4
62.2
-
-
Murder
2
31.1
-
-
Bennettsville Crime Trend (2020-2024)
Bennettsville property crime rate trend
Lead series · rose across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program · split lines are the U.S. national averages
Bennettsville Police Department
Reporting agency for Bennettsville NIBRS-participating
Bennettsville Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Bennettsville's 293 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.
Similar-Size Cities in South Carolina
Crime rates read differently at different scales, so these are the South Carolina cities closest to Bennettsville in population. Their populations run from 5,340 to 7,389, against 6,430 here. Or use our
side-by-side compare tool
to benchmark two cities directly.
In 2024, Bennettsville reported 64 violent crimes and 229 property crimes, for a total of 293 reported offenses.
Is crime increasing or decreasing in Bennettsville?
From 2023 to 2024, Bennettsville's violent crime rate decreased by 27.6%, and the property crime rate decreased by 15.6%.
What is the most common crime in Bennettsville?
The most common crime type in Bennettsville is larceny-theft, accounting for 61.1% of all reported crimes (179 incidents in 2024).
Small-city read: Bennettsville is sourced from FBI UCR Table 8 for 2024; rates use that row's population.
Small-city rows use the same per-100,000 formula; a few unreported years can leave gaps in the trend table. Verify the agency's submission on FBI.gov UCR.
Disclaimer (small city): UCR counts here are informational only. They are not a victimization probability. Source: FBI UCR Program.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Bennettsville, SC rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.