Hays, KS has a B safety grade (64/100) with a violent crime rate of 233 per 100,000, 34% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · mid-size city
Hays (21,011 people) sits in the mid-size municipal band. This page opens with per-100,000 FBI UCR rates, then KS and national benchmarks.
Data updated 2026-08-24
Hays, KS carries a PlainCrime B safety grade with violent crime 34% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Hays, KS shows violent crime at 233.2 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 1,461.1 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 34% below the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade B from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
Comparable rate records
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Hays's 233.2 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Colby (233.1), Burlington (232.6), Baxter Springs (236.0), Goodland (227.8). 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.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 332.2 per 100,000 in 2020 to 233.2 in 2024 (-29.8%). The highest observed value was 473.5 in 2022 and the lowest 233.2 in 2024. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Position in the state cohort
At 233.2 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Hays ranks 50 of 125 — above 75 of the 124 other Kansas cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +22.9% against the cohort median of 189.7. 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 Hays'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 8.7 Census sq mi, Hays logged 35.1 property and 5.6 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Hays's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (72% of 356 offenses; mix index 5,399).
Violent offenses are only 14% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Hays offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (8.7 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 | 307 | 1461.1 |
| Larceny-Theft | 256 | 1218.4 |
| Burglary | 36 | 171.3 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 15 | 71.4 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 49 | 233.2 |
| Aggravated Assault | 35 | 166.6 |
| Rape | 12 | 57.1 |
| Robbery | 2 | 9.5 |
| Murder | 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 | 20,769 | 332.2 | 2181.1 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 20,861 | 465 | 1965.4 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 20,696 | 473.5 | 1865.1 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 21,143 | 420.9 | 1234.5 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 21,011 | 233.2 | 1461.1 |
Hays Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Hays's 356 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 Kansas cities closest to Hays in population. Their populations run from 16,108 to 26,071, against 21,011 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Hays sits at 233.2/100K violent (grade B); the Kansas cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Hays at 233.2/100K violent and 1,461.1/100K property - matched below outside Kansas (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
233.2/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
1,461.1/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
In 2024, Hays reported 49 violent crimes and 307 property crimes, for a total of 356 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Hays's violent crime rate decreased by 44.6%, and the property crime rate increased by 18.4%.
The most common crime type in Hays is larceny-theft, accounting for 71.9% of all reported crimes (256 incidents in 2024).
Mid-size read: Hays 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 Hays's mid-size city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Hays, KS 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. Hays is scored in the mid-size municipal band (21,011 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.