Opelika, AL has a F safety grade (21/100) with a violent crime rate of 560 per 100,000, 59% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · mid-size city
Opelika (34,448 people) sits in the mid-size municipal band. This page opens with per-100,000 FBI UCR rates, then AL and national benchmarks.
Data updated 2026-08-24
Opelika, AL carries a PlainCrime F safety grade with violent crime 59% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Opelika, AL shows violent crime at 560.3 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 2,624.2 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 59% 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.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 353.1 per 100,000 in 2020 to 560.3 in 2024 (+58.7%). The highest observed value was 877.9 in 2022 and the lowest 353.1 in 2020. 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 Opelika's 560.3 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Adamsville (559.5), Sylacauga (561.6), Tuscaloosa (553.4), Brewton (544.9). 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 560.3 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Opelika ranks 55 of 263 — above 208 of the 262 other Alabama cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +162.4% against the cohort median of 213.5. 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 84.5% of reported property offenses in Opelika, against a cohort median of 74.2%. The remainder is burglary (71) and motor vehicle theft (69). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 17.6% of the 1,097 Part I offenses reported in Opelika for 2024, against a median of 13.8% across comparable Alabama cities — a gap of 3.8 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 counts dominate Opelika'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.
Across 61.5 Census sq mi, Opelika logged 14.7 property and 3.1 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Opelika's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (70% of 1,097 offenses; mix index 5,134).
Violent offenses are 18% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
Opelika offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (61.5 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 | 904 | 2624.2 |
| Larceny-Theft | 764 | 2217.8 |
| Burglary | 71 | 206.1 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 69 | 200.3 |
| Arson | 2 | 5.8 |
| Violent Crime | 193 | 560.3 |
| Aggravated Assault | 154 | 447.1 |
| Robbery | 19 | 55.2 |
| Rape | 17 | 49.3 |
| Murder | 3 | 8.7 |
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 | 31,437 | 353.1 | 1905.4 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 31,644 | 736.3 | 3005.3 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 32,010 | 877.9 | 2796 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 33,681 | 697.7 | 2835.4 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 34,448 | 560.3 | 2624.2 |
Opelika Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Opelika's 1,097 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 Alabama cities closest to Opelika in population. Their populations run from 30,766 to 39,818, against 34,448 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Opelika sits at 560.3/100K violent (grade F); the Alabama cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Opelika at 560.3/100K violent and 2,624.2/100K property - matched below outside Alabama (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
560.3/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
2,624.2/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
Out-of-state cities whose violent rate moved a similar share from 2023→2024 (-19.7% here); level-based peers above are excluded.
In 2024, Opelika reported 193 violent crimes and 904 property crimes, for a total of 1,097 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Opelika's violent crime rate decreased by 19.7%, and the property crime rate decreased by 7.4%.
The most common crime type in Opelika is larceny-theft, accounting for 69.6% of all reported crimes (764 incidents in 2024).
Mid-size read: Opelika 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.
Mid-size rate methodology for how Opelika's mid-size city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Opelika, AL 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. Opelika is scored in the mid-size municipal band (34,448 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.