Fort Lawn, SC has a F safety grade (21/100) with a violent crime rate of 512 per 100,000, 46% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · small municipal
Fort Lawn's UCR row covers a small municipal population (976). Rates below are per 100,000 and sit next to SC and U.S. averages.
Data updated 2026-09-05
Fort Lawn, SC is among the highest-crime cities in the country, and earns an F PlainCrime safety grade, where violent crime runs 46% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Fort Lawn, SC shows violent crime at 512.3 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 3,176.2 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 46% 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.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 113.0 per 100,000 in 2020 to 512.3 in 2024 (+353.4%). The highest observed value was 512.3 in 2024 and the lowest 113.0 in 2020. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Small-count caution
Fort Lawn reported 5 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 976. 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 Fort Lawn's 512.3 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Chesterfield (513.2), Swansea (518.1), Greenwood (484.9), Springdale (552.7). 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 90.3% of reported property offenses in Fort Lawn, against a cohort median of 80.3%. The remainder is burglary (1) and motor vehicle theft (2). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Position in the state cohort
At 512.3 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Fort Lawn ranks 68 of 149 — above 81 of the 148 other South Carolina cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +23.6% 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.
Property counts dominate Fort Lawn'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 976. 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 1.4 Census sq mi, Fort Lawn logged 22.3 property and 3.6 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Fort Lawn's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (78% of 36 offenses; mix index 6,188).
Violent offenses are only 14% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Fort Lawn offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (1.4 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 | 31 | 3176.2 |
| Larceny-Theft | 28 | 2868.9 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 2 | 204.9 |
| Burglary | 1 | 102.5 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 5 | 512.3 |
| Aggravated Assault | 3 | 307.4 |
| Rape | 2 | 204.9 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
| Robbery | 0 | 0 |
Lead series · rose across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · rose · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 885 | 113 | 1920.9 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 888 | 337.8 | 1914.4 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 965 | 310.9 | 1036.3 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 960 | 312.5 | 1041.7 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 976 | 512.3 | 3176.2 |
Fort Lawn Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Fort Lawn's 36 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 Fort Lawn in population. Their populations run from 812 to 1,078, against 976 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Fort Lawn sits at 512.3/100K violent (grade F); the South Carolina cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
In 2024, Fort Lawn reported 5 violent crimes and 31 property crimes, for a total of 36 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Fort Lawn's violent crime rate increased by 63.9%, and the property crime rate increased by 204.9%.
The most common crime type in Fort Lawn is larceny-theft, accounting for 77.8% of all reported crimes (28 incidents in 2024).
Micro-municipal read: Fort Lawn'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 Fort Lawn's small municipal row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Fort Lawn, SC rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.
Bulk download: city crime dataset (CSV/JSON)
Put this to use
Put the Fort Lawn, 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. Fort Lawn is scored as a small municipal UCR reporter (976 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.