Clay City, KY has a A+ safety grade (92/100) with a violent crime rate of 85 per 100,000, 76% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · small municipal
Clay City's UCR row covers a small municipal population (1,174). Rates below are per 100,000 and sit next to KY and U.S. averages.
Data updated 2026-09-05
Clay City, KY is safer than most U.S. cities, and earns an A+ PlainCrime safety grade, where violent crime runs 76% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Clay City, KY shows violent crime at 85.2 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 0 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.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 100.0% of the 1 Part I offenses reported in Clay City for 2024, against a median of 8.0% across comparable Kentucky cities — a gap of 92.0 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.
Small-count caution
Clay City reported 1 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 1,174. 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 275.2 per 100,000 in 2020 to 85.2 in 2024 (-69.1%). The highest observed value was 275.2 in 2020 and the lowest 0.0 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 Clay City's 85.2 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are West Liberty (84.9), Beaver Dam (86.0), Central City (86.1), Benton (83.9). 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.
Position in the state cohort
At 85.2 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Clay City ranks 100 of 231 — above 131 of the 230 other Kentucky cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +28.3% 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.
Violent counts are the sharper signal on Clay City's FBI UCR Table 8 municipal row. Per-100,000 rates use the reporting-year population on that row; incomplete reporters stay out of rate rankings. A citywide figure rarely describes any single neighbourhood inside the municipal boundary.
Based on 1 reported violent incidents in a population of 1,174. 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.
On a small municipal row, small denominators make rates sensitive to a handful of incidents. Figures are reported totals, not neighbourhood advice.
Across 1.1 Census sq mi, Clay City logged 0 property and 0.9 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Clay City's 2024 book concentrates in aggravated assault (100% of 1 offenses; mix index 10,000).
Violent offenses are 100% of the municipal total - a violence-heavy book for a small municipal.
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (1.1 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Violent Crime | 1 | 85.2 |
| Aggravated Assault | 1 | 85.2 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
| Rape | 0 | 0 |
| Robbery | 0 | 0 |
| Property Crime | 0 | 0 |
| Burglary | 0 | 0 |
| Larceny-Theft | 0 | 0 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 0 | 0 |
| Arson | 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 | 1,090 | 275.2 | 2477.1 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 1,083 | 0 | 1385 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 1,204 | 0 | 498.3 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 1,187 | 252.7 | 252.7 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 1,174 | 85.2 | 0 |
Clay City Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Clay City's 1 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 Clay City in population. Their populations run from 1,047 to 1,329, against 1,174 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
In 2024, Clay City reported 1 violent crimes and 0 property crimes, for a total of 1 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Clay City's violent crime rate decreased by 66.3%, and the property crime rate decreased by 100%.
The most common crime type in Clay City is aggravated assault, accounting for 100.0% of all reported crimes (1 incidents in 2024).
Micro-municipal read: Clay City's FBI UCR Table 8 row (2024) is the only source for the rates above.
With a small population base, per-100,000 rates amplify sparse counts. Incomplete submissions are excluded from rankings. See FBI.gov UCR for the raw Table 8 file.
Disclaimer (small municipal): small-base rates are especially easy to misread. Informational only - not advice. Source: FBI UCR Program.
Micro-municipal rate methodology for how Clay City's small municipal row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Clay City, KY rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.
Bulk download: city crime dataset (CSV/JSON)
Put this to use
Put the Clay City, KY FBI UCR record to work: compare peers, open the state atlas, or look up another city.
A citywide UCR rate is a starting point, not a neighbourhood verdict: read the full profile and the year coverage notes before drawing conclusions.
Every figure on PlainCrime is rendered directly from FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) source data, no number is typed in by an editor. Clay City is scored as a small municipal UCR reporter (1,174 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.