Independence, KS has a F safety grade (18/100) with a violent crime rate of 522 per 100,000, 48% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · small city
Independence is a small municipal reporter (8,237 on the UCR row). Per-100,000 violent and property rates are shown with KS and U.S. context.
Data updated 2026-08-24
Independence, KS carries a PlainCrime F safety grade with violent crime 48% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Independence, KS shows violent crime at 522 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 3,605.7 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 48% 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 522.0 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Independence ranks 16 of 125 — above 109 of the 124 other Kansas cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +175.1% 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.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 1094.6 per 100,000 in 2020 to 522.0 in 2024 (-52.3%). The highest observed value was 1094.6 in 2020 and the lowest 522.0 in 2024. 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 Independence's 522.0 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Concordia (522.4), Chanute (525.2), Iola (529.1), Coffeyville (529.8). 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.
Property counts dominate Independence'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.
Small-city offense counts above are voluntary UCR submissions, not neighbourhood advice. Year-to-year swings can look large when the population base is modest.
Across 7.5 Census sq mi, Independence logged 39.6 property and 5.7 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Independence's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (63% of 340 offenses; mix index 4,543).
Violent offenses are only 13% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Independence offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (7.5 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 | 297 | 3605.7 |
| Larceny-Theft | 215 | 2610.2 |
| Burglary | 66 | 801.3 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 16 | 194.2 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 43 | 522 |
| Aggravated Assault | 41 | 497.8 |
| Rape | 2 | 24.3 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
| Robbery | 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 | 8,405 | 1094.6 | 7555 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 8,326 | 804.7 | 4756.2 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 8,402 | 714.1 | 3546.8 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 8,379 | 632.5 | 4499.3 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 8,237 | 522 | 3605.7 |
Independence Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Independence's 340 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 Independence in population. Their populations run from 7,530 to 9,247, against 8,237 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Independence sits at 522/100K violent (grade F); the Kansas cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
In 2024, Independence reported 43 violent crimes and 297 property crimes, for a total of 340 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Independence's violent crime rate decreased by 17.5%, and the property crime rate decreased by 19.9%.
The most common crime type in Independence is larceny-theft, accounting for 63.2% of all reported crimes (215 incidents in 2024).
Small-city read: Independence is sourced from FBI UCR Table 8 for 2024; rates use that row's population.
Small-city rows use the same per-100,000 formula; a few unreported years can leave gaps in the trend table. Verify the agency's submission on FBI.gov UCR.
Disclaimer (small city): UCR counts here are informational only. They are not a victimization probability. Source: FBI UCR Program.
Small-city rate methodology for how Independence's small city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Independence, 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. Independence is scored as a small-city UCR reporter (8,237 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.