Bowling Green, KY has a C safety grade (52/100) with a violent crime rate of 225 per 100,000, 36% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · large city
Bowling Green, KY Crime Rate & Safety
At 77,503 residents, Bowling Green is a large city: FBI UCR Table 8 rates (per 100,000) here are read against KY and U.S. averages before the offense-family breakdown.
Bowling Green, KY carries a PlainCrime C safety grade with violent crime 36% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Bowling Green, KY shows violent crime at 224.5 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 2,928.9 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 36% below the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade C from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
C safety grade
224.5/100K violent
2928.9/100K property
-36% vs U.S.
What the 2024 FBI UCR record shows for Bowling Green, KY
Position in the state cohort
Bowling Green reported a higher violent-crime rate than most comparable Kentucky cities
At 224.5 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Bowling Green ranks 23 of 231 — above 208 of the 230 other Kentucky cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +238.1% 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.
Comparable rate records
Bowling Green's closest reported-rate comparisons are in the Kentucky cohort
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Bowling Green's 224.5 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Barbourville (224.1), Taylorsville (225.7), Greensburg (222.1), Russell (221.4). 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.
2020–2024 direction
The reported violent-crime rate ended the window lower
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 368.8 per 100,000 in 2020 to 224.5 in 2024 (-39.1%). The highest observed value was 368.8 in 2020 and the lowest 224.5 in 2024. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property counts dominate Bowling Green'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.
On a large city row, these are citywide reported offense totals - not neighbourhood advice. Conditions vary by place and time; reporting rates differ across jurisdictions.
Bowling Green's 2024 municipal footprint
Across 42 Census sq mi, Bowling Green logged 54.1 property and 4.1 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Bowling Green's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (74% of 2,444 offenses; mix index 5,630).
Violent offenses are only 7% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (42 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
-7.5%
242.8 → 224.5/100K
Property Crime Rate
-2.5%
3005.5 → 2928.9/100K
Property offenses lead Bowling Green's 2024 record
Offense
Count
Rate /100K
vs KY
Property Crime
2,270
2928.9
1397.1
Larceny-Theft
1,800
2322.5
-
Burglary
264
340.6
-
Motor Vehicle Theft
206
265.8
-
Arson
7
9
-
Violent Crime
174
224.5
225.5
Rape
69
89
-
Aggravated Assault
68
87.7
-
Robbery
36
46.4
-
Murder
1
1.3
-
Bowling Green Crime Trend (2020-2024)
Bowling Green property crime rate trend
Lead series · fell across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program · split lines are the U.S. national averages
Bowling Green Police Department
Reporting agency for Bowling Green NIBRS-participating
Bowling Green Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Bowling Green's 2,444 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 Kentucky
Crime rates read differently at different scales, so these are the Kentucky cities closest to Bowling Green in population. Their populations run from 30,694 to 60,096, against 77,503 here. Or use our
side-by-side compare tool
to benchmark two cities directly.
Bowling Green at 224.5/100K violent and 2,928.9/100K property - matched below outside Kentucky (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
In 2024, Bowling Green reported 174 violent crimes and 2,270 property crimes, for a total of 2,444 reported offenses.
Is crime increasing or decreasing in Bowling Green?
From 2023 to 2024, Bowling Green's violent crime rate decreased by 7.5%, and the property crime rate decreased by 2.5%.
What is the most common crime in Bowling Green?
The most common crime type in Bowling Green is larceny-theft, accounting for 73.6% of all reported crimes (1,800 incidents in 2024).
Large-city read: Bowling Green's rates come from the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, CIUS Table 8, vintage 2024.
Incomplete reporters stay out of rate rankings. Cross-check population with Census ACS; state UCR programs for statewide context. Primary verify links: FBI.gov UCR, Census QuickFacts.
Disclaimer (large city): informational crime rates only - not legal, insurance, or personal-safety advice. Source: FBI UCR. Ask a qualified professional before acting.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Bowling Green, KY rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.