Lawrence, KS has a D safety grade (35/100) with a violent crime rate of 462 per 100,000, 31% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · large city
At 96,636 residents, Lawrence is a large city: FBI UCR Table 8 rates (per 100,000) here are read against KS and U.S. averages before the offense-family breakdown.
Data updated 2026-08-24
Lawrence, KS carries a PlainCrime D safety grade with violent crime 31% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Lawrence, KS shows violent crime at 461.5 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 2,156.5 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 31% above the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade D 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 Lawrence's 461.5 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Merriam (435.4), Salina (492.9), Leavenworth (495.4), Cherryvale (426.5). 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 461.5 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Lawrence ranks 21 of 125 — above 104 of the 124 other Kansas cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +143.2% 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.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 17.6% of the 2,530 Part I offenses reported in Lawrence for 2024, against a median of 13.8% across comparable Kansas cities — a gap of 3.9 points. Offense mix is shaped by which agencies report and how incidents are classified as well as by the underlying offenses, so it describes the reported record rather than a settled difference in conditions.
2021–2024 direction
Across 4 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 450.1 per 100,000 in 2021 to 461.5 in 2024 (+2.5%). The highest observed value was 468.7 in 2022 and the lowest 156.9 in 2023. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property counts dominate Lawrence'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 34.6 Census sq mi, Lawrence logged 60.2 property and 12.9 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Lawrence's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (67% of 2,530 offenses; mix index 4,835).
Violent offenses are 18% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
Lawrence offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (34.6 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 | 2,084 | 2156.5 |
| Larceny-Theft | 1,703 | 1762.3 |
| Burglary | 222 | 229.7 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 159 | 164.5 |
| Arson | 11 | 11.4 |
| Violent Crime | 446 | 461.5 |
| Aggravated Assault | 337 | 348.7 |
| Rape | 72 | 74.5 |
| Robbery | 32 | 33.1 |
| Murder | 5 | 5.2 |
The chart omits 2020, 2023 rather than drawing an unsupported zero or partial-coverage dip. The table preserves the year and marks the gap.
Lead series · fell across 3 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · rose · 2021-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Insufficient reporting | 99,368 | - | - |
| 2021 | Comparable | 99,530 | 450.1 | 2389.2 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 95,580 | 468.7 | 2202.3 |
| 2023 | Insufficient reporting | 96,232 | - | - |
| 2024 | Comparable | 96,636 | 461.5 | 2156.5 |
Lawrence Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Lawrence's 2,530 reported offenses (3-year span 2021-2024, with internal gaps).
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 Lawrence in population. Their populations run from 36,939 to 153,363, against 96,636 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Lawrence sits at 461.5/100K violent (grade D); the Kansas cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Lawrence at 461.5/100K violent and 2,156.5/100K property - matched below outside Kansas (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
461.5/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
2,156.5/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
Out-of-state cities whose violent rate moved a similar share from 2023→2024 (+194.1% here); level-based peers above are excluded.
In 2024, Lawrence reported 446 violent crimes and 2,084 property crimes, for a total of 2,530 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Lawrence's violent crime rate increased by 194.1%, and the property crime rate increased by 176%.
The most common crime type in Lawrence is larceny-theft, accounting for 67.3% of all reported crimes (1,703 incidents in 2024).
Large-city read: Lawrence'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 Lawrence's large city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Lawrence, 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. Lawrence is scored here as a large city UCR reporter (96,636 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.