Gulf Shores, AL has a C safety grade (56/100) with a violent crime rate of 287 per 100,000, 18% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · mid-size city
Gulf Shores (17,413 people) sits in the mid-size municipal band. This page opens with per-100,000 FBI UCR rates, then AL and national benchmarks.
Data updated 2026-08-24
Gulf Shores, AL carries a PlainCrime C safety grade with violent crime 18% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Gulf Shores, AL shows violent crime at 287.1 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 1,791.8 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 18% below 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.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 138.6 per 100,000 in 2020 to 287.1 in 2024 (+107.1%). The highest observed value was 532.1 in 2023 and the lowest 138.6 in 2020. 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 Gulf Shores's 287.1 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Butler (287.9), Gilbertown (282.9), Fultondale (293.7), Pell City (294.7). 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 90.7% of reported property offenses in Gulf Shores, against a cohort median of 74.2%. The remainder is burglary (20) and motor vehicle theft (9). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Position in the state cohort
At 287.1 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Gulf Shores ranks 112 of 263 — above 151 of the 262 other Alabama cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +34.5% against the cohort median of 213.5. 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 Gulf Shores'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.
Mid-size municipal totals above are reported offenses, not safety advice for any single block. Reporting completeness still varies by year and agency.
Across 28.7 Census sq mi, Gulf Shores logged 10.9 property and 1.7 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Gulf Shores's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (78% of 362 offenses; mix index 6,292).
Violent offenses are only 14% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Gulf Shores offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (28.7 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 | 312 | 1791.8 |
| Larceny-Theft | 283 | 1625.2 |
| Burglary | 20 | 114.9 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 9 | 51.7 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 50 | 287.1 |
| Aggravated Assault | 43 | 246.9 |
| Rape | 5 | 28.7 |
| Robbery | 2 | 11.5 |
| Murder | 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 | 12,985 | 138.6 | 2117.8 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 13,421 | 372.6 | 2913.3 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 16,274 | 338 | 2439.5 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 16,726 | 532.1 | 2271.9 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 17,413 | 287.1 | 1791.8 |
Gulf Shores Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Gulf Shores's 362 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 Alabama cities closest to Gulf Shores in population. Their populations run from 16,131 to 18,747, against 17,413 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Gulf Shores sits at 287.1/100K violent (grade C); the Alabama cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Gulf Shores at 287.1/100K violent and 1,791.8/100K property - matched below outside Alabama (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
287.1/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
1,791.8/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
In 2024, Gulf Shores reported 50 violent crimes and 312 property crimes, for a total of 362 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Gulf Shores's violent crime rate decreased by 46%, and the property crime rate decreased by 21.1%.
The most common crime type in Gulf Shores is larceny-theft, accounting for 78.2% of all reported crimes (283 incidents in 2024).
Mid-size read: Gulf Shores figures are FBI UCR CIUS Table 8 (vintage 2024), population-adjusted per 100,000.
Denominators are the reporting-year population on the municipal row. Incomplete years are dropped from rankings. Confirm at FBI Crime Data Explorer and Census.gov QuickFacts.
Disclaimer (mid-size municipal): figures are informational, not advice. FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program is the source. Consult a professional before decisions.
Mid-size rate methodology for how Gulf Shores's mid-size city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Gulf Shores, AL 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. Gulf Shores is scored in the mid-size municipal band (17,413 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.