Gainesville, FL has a F safety grade (6/100) with a violent crime rate of 738 per 100,000, 110% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · large city
At 147,022 residents, Gainesville is a large city: FBI UCR Table 8 rates (per 100,000) here are read against FL and U.S. averages before the offense-family breakdown.
Data updated 2026-09-05
Gainesville, FL is among the highest-crime cities in the country, and earns an F PlainCrime safety grade, where violent crime runs 110% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Gainesville, FL shows violent crime at 738 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 2,703.7 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 110% 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.
Position in the state cohort
At 738.0 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Gainesville ranks 10 of 126 — above 116 of the 125 other Florida cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +283.0% against the cohort median of 192.7. 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
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Gainesville's 738.0 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Lake Worth (730.8), Springfield (804.3), Panama City (649.5), St. Petersburg (619.6). 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.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 21.4% of the 5,060 Part I offenses reported in Gainesville for 2024, against a median of 13.3% across comparable Florida cities — a gap of 8.2 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.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 771.4 per 100,000 in 2020 to 738.0 in 2024 (-4.3%). The highest observed value was 800.0 in 2022 and the lowest 11.8 in 2021. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property counts dominate Gainesville'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.
Across 64 Census sq mi, Gainesville logged 62.1 property and 17 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Gainesville's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (67% of 5,060 offenses; mix index 4,772).
Violent offenses are 21% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
Gainesville offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (64 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 | 3,975 | 2703.7 |
| Larceny-Theft | 3,371 | 2292.9 |
| Burglary | 452 | 307.4 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 152 | 103.4 |
| Arson | 13 | 8.8 |
| Violent Crime | 1,085 | 738 |
| Aggravated Assault | 756 | 514.2 |
| Robbery | 196 | 133.3 |
| Rape | 126 | 85.7 |
| Murder | 7 | 4.8 |
The chart omits 2021 rather than drawing an unsupported zero or partial-coverage dip. The table preserves the year and marks the gap.
Lead series · fell across 4 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · fell · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 135,076 | 771.4 | 3188.6 |
| 2021 | Insufficient reporting | 136,085 | - | - |
| 2022 | Comparable | 140,869 | 800 | 2751.5 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 146,744 | 748.9 | 2926.9 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 147,022 | 738 | 2703.7 |
Gainesville Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Gainesville's 5,060 reported offenses (4-year span 2020-2024, with internal gaps).
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 Florida cities closest to Gainesville in population. Their populations run from 81,967 to 141,137, against 147,022 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Gainesville sits at 738/100K violent (grade F); the Florida cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Gainesville at 738/100K violent and 2,703.7/100K property - matched below outside Florida (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
738/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
2,703.7/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
Out-of-state cities whose violent rate moved a similar share from 2023→2024 (-1.5% here); level-based peers above are excluded.
In 2024, Gainesville reported 1,085 violent crimes and 3,975 property crimes, for a total of 5,060 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Gainesville's violent crime rate decreased by 1.5%, and the property crime rate decreased by 7.6%.
The most common crime type in Gainesville is larceny-theft, accounting for 66.6% of all reported crimes (3,371 incidents in 2024).
Large-city read: Gainesville'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.
Large-city rate methodology for how Gainesville's large city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Gainesville, FL rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.
Bulk download: city crime dataset (CSV/JSON)
Put this to use
Put the Gainesville, FL 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. Gainesville is scored here as a large city UCR reporter (147,022 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.