Lawton, OK has a F safety grade (7/100) with a violent crime rate of 820 per 100,000, 133% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · large city
At 90,209 residents, Lawton is a large city: FBI UCR Table 8 rates (per 100,000) here are read against OK and U.S. averages before the offense-family breakdown.
Data updated 2026-09-05
Lawton, OK is among the highest-crime cities in the country, and earns an F PlainCrime safety grade, where violent crime runs 133% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Lawton, OK shows violent crime at 820.3 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 2,652.7 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 133% 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 820.3 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Lawton ranks 17 of 300 — above 283 of the 299 other Oklahoma cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +286.2% against the cohort median of 212.4. Cities that did not report, or that reported implausibly low totals, are excluded from this cohort rather than counted as low-crime.
Comparable rate records
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Lawton's 820.3 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Broken Bow (828.6), Muldrow (802.1), Arkoma (858.4), Vian (862.1). 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.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 23.6% of the 3,133 Part I offenses reported in Lawton for 2024, against a median of 15.0% across comparable Oklahoma cities — a gap of 8.6 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.
Property-offense composition
Larceny-theft is 56.2% of reported property offenses in Lawton, against a cohort median of 66.1%. The remainder is burglary (840) and motor vehicle theft (208). 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 785.9 per 100,000 in 2020 to 820.3 in 2024 (+4.4%). The highest observed value was 849.4 in 2022 and the lowest 659.0 in 2021. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property counts dominate Lawton'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 81.7 Census sq mi, Lawton logged 29.3 property and 9.1 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Lawton leans on larceny-theft at 43% of reported offenses, with a moderate mix index of 2,923.
Violent offenses are 24% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
Lawton offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (81.7 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 | 2,393 | 2652.7 |
| Larceny-Theft | 1,345 | 1491 |
| Burglary | 840 | 931.2 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 208 | 230.6 |
| Arson | 38 | 42.1 |
| Violent Crime | 740 | 820.3 |
| Aggravated Assault | 537 | 595.3 |
| Rape | 129 | 143 |
| Robbery | 65 | 72.1 |
| Murder | 9 | 10 |
Lead series · rose across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · rose · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 92,507 | 785.9 | 2238.7 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 92,711 | 659 | 1704.2 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 91,596 | 849.4 | 2167.1 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 92,137 | 785.8 | 2528.8 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 90,209 | 820.3 | 2652.7 |
Lawton Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Lawton's 3,133 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 Oklahoma cities closest to Lawton in population. Their populations run from 42,134 to 130,681, against 90,209 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Lawton sits at 820.3/100K violent (grade F); the Oklahoma cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Lawton at 820.3/100K violent and 2,652.7/100K property - matched below outside Oklahoma (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
820.3/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
2,652.7/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
Out-of-state cities whose violent rate moved a similar share from 2023→2024 (+4.4% here); level-based peers above are excluded.
In 2024, Lawton reported 740 violent crimes and 2,393 property crimes, for a total of 3,133 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Lawton's violent crime rate increased by 4.4%, and the property crime rate increased by 4.9%.
The most common crime type in Lawton is larceny-theft, accounting for 42.9% of all reported crimes (1,345 incidents in 2024).
Large-city read: Lawton'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 Lawton's large city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Lawton, OK rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.
Bulk download: city crime dataset (CSV/JSON)
Put this to use
Put the Lawton, OK 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. Lawton is scored here as a large city UCR reporter (90,209 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.