Cowpens, SC has a C safety grade (52/100) with a violent crime rate of 356 per 100,000, 1% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · small municipal
Cowpens's UCR row covers a small municipal population (2,247). Rates below are per 100,000 and sit next to SC and U.S. averages.
Data updated 2026-09-05
Cowpens, SC is higher-crime than most U.S. cities, and earns a C PlainCrime safety grade, where violent crime runs 1% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Cowpens, SC shows violent crime at 356 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 1,468.6 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 1% above 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.
Small-count caution
Cowpens reported 8 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 2,247. 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 Cowpens's 356.0 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Charleston (357.6), Inman (359.9), North Myrtle Beach (360.8), Gaston (366.1). 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 54.5% of reported property offenses in Cowpens, against a cohort median of 80.6%. The remainder is burglary (12) and motor vehicle theft (3). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 19.5% of the 41 Part I offenses reported in Cowpens for 2024, against a median of 14.9% across comparable South Carolina cities — a gap of 4.6 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.
Position in the state cohort
At 356.0 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Cowpens ranks 85 of 149 — above 64 of the 148 other South Carolina cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is -15.0% against the cohort median of 418.8. 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 326.5 per 100,000 in 2020 to 356.0 in 2024 (+9.0%). The highest observed value was 552.2 in 2023 and the lowest 237.6 in 2022. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property counts dominate Cowpens'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 8 reported violent incidents in a population of 2,247. 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 2.3 Census sq mi, Cowpens logged 14.4 property and 3.5 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Cowpens leans on larceny-theft at 44% of reported offenses, with a moderate mix index of 3,224.
Violent offenses are 20% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
Cowpens offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (2.3 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 | 33 | 1468.6 |
| Larceny-Theft | 18 | 801.1 |
| Burglary | 12 | 534 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 3 | 133.5 |
| Arson | 1 | 44.5 |
| Violent Crime | 8 | 356 |
| Aggravated Assault | 8 | 356 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
| Rape | 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 | 2,450 | 326.5 | 1959.2 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 2,498 | 320.3 | 1641.3 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 2,104 | 237.6 | 2946.8 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 2,173 | 552.2 | 2807.2 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 2,247 | 356 | 1468.6 |
Cowpens Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Cowpens's 41 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 South Carolina cities closest to Cowpens in population. Their populations run from 2,057 to 2,433, against 2,247 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Cowpens sits at 356/100K violent (grade C); the South Carolina cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
In 2024, Cowpens reported 8 violent crimes and 33 property crimes, for a total of 41 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Cowpens's violent crime rate decreased by 35.5%, and the property crime rate decreased by 47.7%.
The most common crime type in Cowpens is larceny-theft, accounting for 43.9% of all reported crimes (18 incidents in 2024).
Micro-municipal read: Cowpens'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 Cowpens's small municipal row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Cowpens, SC rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.
Bulk download: city crime dataset (CSV/JSON)
Put this to use
Put the Cowpens, SC 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. Cowpens is scored as a small municipal UCR reporter (2,247 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.