Central City, KY has a A safety grade (83/100) with a violent crime rate of 86 per 100,000, 76% below the national average.
Central City is a small municipal reporter (5,808 on the UCR row). Per-100,000 violent and property rates are shown with KY and U.S. context.
Central City, KY carries a PlainCrime A safety grade with violent crime 76% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Central City, KY shows violent crime at 86.1 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 981.4 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 76% below the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade A from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
The verdict
Central City earns an A safety grade: violent crime runs 76% below the U.S. average, placing it safer than most U.S. cities.
Based on 5 reported violent incidents in a population of 5,808. 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.
Small-count caution
Central City reported 5 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 5,808. 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.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 52.6 per 100,000 in 2020 to 86.1 in 2024 (+63.7%). The highest observed value was 237.9 in 2022 and the lowest 35.3 in 2021. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Comparable rate records
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Central City's 86.1 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Beaver Dam (86.0), Berea (86.8), Clay City (85.2), West Liberty (84.9). 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.
Property-offense composition
Larceny-theft is 87.7% of reported property offenses in Central City, against a cohort median of 72.2%. The remainder is burglary (3) and motor vehicle theft (4). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Position in the state cohort
At 86.1 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Central City ranks 98 of 231 — above 133 of the 230 other Kentucky cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +29.7% 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.
Property counts dominate Central City'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 5 reported violent incidents in a population of 5,808. 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.
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.
| Offense | Count | Rate /100K |
|---|---|---|
| Property Crime | 57 | 981.4 |
| Larceny-Theft | 50 | 860.9 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 4 | 68.9 |
| Burglary | 3 | 51.7 |
| Arson | 1 | 17.2 |
| Violent Crime | 5 | 86.1 |
| Aggravated Assault | 4 | 68.9 |
| Rape | 1 | 17.2 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
| Robbery | 0 | 0 |
Lead series · fell across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · rose · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 5,703 | 52.6 | 1227.4 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 5,664 | 35.3 | 1465.4 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 5,884 | 237.9 | 2226.4 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 5,827 | 68.6 | 1149.8 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 5,808 | 86.1 | 981.4 |
Central City's crime figures on this page originate from Central City Police Department's submission to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Program.
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 Central City in population. Their populations run from 5,706 to 6,478, against 5,808 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
These Kentucky cities report the closest violent-crime rates to Central City's 86.1/100K (same FBI UCR vintage rules; size peers above are excluded so the two lists stay distinct).
Small-city read: Central City 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.
Small-city rate methodology for how Central City's small city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Central City, 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. Central City is scored as a small-city UCR reporter (5,808 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.