Johnston, RI carries a PlainCrime A safety grade with violent crime 66% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Johnston, RI shows violent crime at 119.3 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 981 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 66% below the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade A from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
A safety grade
119.3/100K violent
981/100K property
-66% vs U.S.
What the 2024 FBI UCR record shows for Johnston, RI
Comparable rate records
Johnston's closest reported-rate comparisons are in the Rhode Island cohort
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Johnston's 119.3 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Middletown (119.9), Warren (115.2), North Providence (104.8), Cranston (93.1). 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.
Position in the state cohort
Johnston reported a higher violent-crime rate than most comparable Rhode Island cities
At 119.3 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Johnston ranks 9 of 35 — above 26 of the 34 other Rhode Island cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +74.6% against the cohort median of 68.4. Cities that did not report, or that reported implausibly low totals, are excluded from this cohort rather than counted as low-crime.
Property-offense composition
Burglary and vehicle theft carry more of the property total than they do across the cohort
Larceny-theft is 67.6% of reported property offenses in Johnston, against a cohort median of 80.1%. The remainder is burglary (31) and motor vehicle theft (65). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
2020–2024 direction
The reported violent-crime rate ended the window lower
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 125.6 per 100,000 in 2020 to 119.3 in 2024 (-5.0%). The highest observed value was 125.6 in 2020 and the lowest 85.3 in 2021. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property counts dominate Johnston'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.
Johnston's 2024 municipal footprint
Across 23.5 Census sq mi, Johnston logged 12.6 property and 1.5 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Johnston's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (60% of 332 offenses; mix index 4,157).
Violent offenses are only 11% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (23.5 sq mi); mix index is HHI x 10,000 on the offense-type shares above. Distinct from the per-100K rates in the hero.
Property rate moved most (2023→2024)
Property Crime Rate
-21.6%
1250.7 → 981/100K
Violent Crime Rate
+0.8%
118.3 → 119.3/100K
Property offenses lead Johnston's 2024 record
Offense
Count
Rate /100K
vs US avg
Property Crime
296
981
1711
Larceny-Theft
200
662.9
-
Motor Vehicle Theft
65
215.4
-
Burglary
31
102.7
-
Arson
1
3.3
-
Violent Crime
36
119.3
352
Aggravated Assault
23
76.2
-
Rape
10
33.1
-
Robbery
3
9.9
-
Murder
0
0
-
Johnston Crime Trend (2020-2024)
Johnston property crime rate trend
Lead series · fell across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program · split lines are the U.S. national averages
Johnston Police Department
Reporting agency for Johnston NIBRS-participating
Johnston Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Johnston's 332 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.
Similar-Size Cities in Rhode Island
Crime rates read differently at different scales, so these are the Rhode Island cities closest to Johnston in population. Their populations run from 23,308 to 37,213, against 30,172 here. Or use our
side-by-side compare tool
to benchmark two cities directly.
Johnston at 119.3/100K violent and 981/100K property - matched below outside Rhode Island (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
In 2024, Johnston reported 36 violent crimes and 296 property crimes, for a total of 332 reported offenses.
Is crime increasing or decreasing in Johnston?
From 2023 to 2024, Johnston's violent crime rate increased by 0.8%, and the property crime rate decreased by 21.6%.
What is the most common crime in Johnston?
The most common crime type in Johnston is larceny-theft, accounting for 60.2% of all reported crimes (200 incidents in 2024).
Mid-size read: Johnston 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.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Johnston, RI rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.