Palm Bay, FL has a C safety grade (57/100) with a violent crime rate of 347 per 100,000, 1% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · large city
Palm Bay, FL Crime Rate & Safety
At 141,137 residents, Palm Bay is a large city: FBI UCR Table 8 rates (per 100,000) here are read against FL and U.S. averages before the offense-family breakdown.
Palm Bay, FL is higher-crime than most U.S. cities, and earns a C PlainCrime safety grade, where violent crime runs 1% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Palm Bay, FL shows violent crime at 347.2 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 1,017.5 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 1% below the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade C from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
C safety grade
347.2/100K violent
1017.5/100K property
-1% vs U.S.
What the 2024 FBI UCR record shows for Palm Bay, FL
Comparable rate records
Palm Bay's closest reported-rate comparisons are in the Florida cohort
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Palm Bay's 347.2 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Parker (348.6), Blountstown (351.6), Key West (352.3), Altamonte Springs (340.3). 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 make up an unusually large share of the reported mix
Violent offenses are 25.4% of the 1,926 Part I offenses reported in Palm Bay for 2024, against a median of 13.3% across comparable Florida cities — a gap of 12.2 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.
Position in the state cohort
Palm Bay sits mid-pack among comparable Florida cities
At 347.2 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Palm Bay ranks 41 of 126 — above 85 of the 125 other Florida cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +80.2% against the cohort median of 192.7. Cities that did not report, or that reported implausibly low totals, are excluded from this cohort rather than counted as low-crime.
2020–2024 direction
The reported violent-crime rate ended the window higher
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 280.6 per 100,000 in 2020 to 347.2 in 2024 (+23.7%). The highest observed value was 347.2 in 2024 and the lowest 280.6 in 2020. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property-offense composition
Burglary and vehicle theft carry more of the property total than they do across the cohort
Larceny-theft is 71.2% of reported property offenses in Palm Bay, against a cohort median of 81.8%. The remainder is burglary (324) and motor vehicle theft (89). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Property counts dominate Palm Bay'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.
Palm Bay's 2024 municipal footprint
Across 86.7 Census sq mi, Palm Bay logged 16.6 property and 5.7 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Palm Bay leans on larceny-theft at 53% of reported offenses, with a moderate mix index of 3,462.
Violent offenses are 25% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (86.7 sq mi); mix index is HHI x 10,000 on the offense-type shares above. Distinct from the per-100K rates in the hero.
Violent rate moved most (2023→2024)
Violent Crime Rate
+8%
321.5 → 347.2/100K
Property Crime Rate
-3.1%
1050.4 → 1017.5/100K
Property offenses lead Palm Bay's 2024 record
Offense
Count
Rate /100K
vs US avg
Property Crime
1,436
1017.5
1711
Larceny-Theft
1,023
724.8
-
Burglary
324
229.6
-
Motor Vehicle Theft
89
63.1
-
Arson
3
2.1
-
Violent Crime
490
347.2
352
Aggravated Assault
339
240.2
-
Robbery
73
51.7
-
Rape
67
47.5
-
Murder
11
7.8
-
Palm Bay Crime Trend (2020-2024)
Palm Bay 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
Palm Bay Police Department
Reporting agency for Palm Bay NIBRS-participating
Palm Bay Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Palm Bay's 1,926 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 Florida
Crime rates read differently at different scales, so these are the Florida cities closest to Palm Bay in population. Their populations run from 81,967 to 147,022, against 141,137 here. Or use our
side-by-side compare tool
to benchmark two cities directly.
In 2024, Palm Bay reported 490 violent crimes and 1,436 property crimes, for a total of 1,926 reported offenses.
Is crime increasing or decreasing in Palm Bay?
From 2023 to 2024, Palm Bay's violent crime rate increased by 8%, and the property crime rate decreased by 3.1%.
What is the most common crime in Palm Bay?
The most common crime type in Palm Bay is larceny-theft, accounting for 53.1% of all reported crimes (1,023 incidents in 2024).
Large-city read: Palm Bay'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.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Palm Bay, FL rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.