Jonesboro, AR has a F safety grade (3/100) with a violent crime rate of 720 per 100,000, 105% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · large city
At 81,256 residents, Jonesboro is a large city: FBI UCR Table 8 rates (per 100,000) here are read against AR and U.S. averages before the offense-family breakdown.
Data updated 2026-09-05
Jonesboro, AR is among the highest-crime cities in the country, and earns an F PlainCrime safety grade, where violent crime runs 105% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Jonesboro, AR shows violent crime at 719.9 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 3,044.7 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 105% 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.
Comparable rate records
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Jonesboro's 719.9 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Hope (710.5), Beebe (709.4), Clarendon (693.5), Ozark (665.7). 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.
Position in the state cohort
At 719.9 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Jonesboro ranks 31 of 204 — above 173 of the 203 other Arkansas cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +135.1% against the cohort median of 306.2. 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
Larceny-theft is 62.2% of reported property offenses in Jonesboro, against a cohort median of 74.8%. The remainder is burglary (755) and motor vehicle theft (181). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 808.0 per 100,000 in 2020 to 719.9 in 2024 (-10.9%). The highest observed value was 808.0 in 2020 and the lowest 646.8 in 2023. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property counts dominate Jonesboro'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 80.2 Census sq mi, Jonesboro logged 30.9 property and 7.3 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Jonesboro leans on larceny-theft at 50% of reported offenses, with a moderate mix index of 3,395.
Violent offenses are 19% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
Jonesboro offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (80.2 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 | 2,474 | 3044.7 |
| Larceny-Theft | 1,538 | 1892.8 |
| Burglary | 755 | 929.2 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 181 | 222.8 |
| Arson | 6 | 7.4 |
| Violent Crime | 585 | 719.9 |
| Aggravated Assault | 446 | 548.9 |
| Rape | 84 | 103.4 |
| Robbery | 50 | 61.5 |
| Murder | 5 | 6.2 |
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 | 79,702 | 808 | 3574.6 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 81,208 | 727.8 | 3057.6 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 79,865 | 653.6 | 3384.5 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 80,395 | 646.8 | 3346 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 81,256 | 719.9 | 3044.7 |
Jonesboro Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Jonesboro's 3,059 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 Arkansas cities closest to Jonesboro in population. Their populations run from 38,524 to 104,089, against 81,256 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Jonesboro sits at 719.9/100K violent (grade F); the Arkansas cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Jonesboro at 719.9/100K violent and 3,044.7/100K property - matched below outside Arkansas (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
719.9/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
3,044.7/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
Out-of-state cities whose violent rate moved a similar share from 2023→2024 (+11.3% here); level-based peers above are excluded.
In 2024, Jonesboro reported 585 violent crimes and 2,474 property crimes, for a total of 3,059 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Jonesboro's violent crime rate increased by 11.3%, and the property crime rate decreased by 9%.
The most common crime type in Jonesboro is larceny-theft, accounting for 50.3% of all reported crimes (1,538 incidents in 2024).
Large-city read: Jonesboro'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 Jonesboro's large city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Jonesboro, AR rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.
Bulk download: city crime dataset (CSV/JSON)
Put this to use
Put the Jonesboro, AR 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. Jonesboro is scored here as a large city UCR reporter (81,256 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.