Panama City, FL has a F safety grade (16/100) with a violent crime rate of 650 per 100,000, 85% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · mid-size city
Panama City (36,646 people) sits in the mid-size municipal band. This page opens with per-100,000 FBI UCR rates, then FL and national benchmarks.
Data updated 2026-09-05
Panama City, FL is among the highest-crime cities in the country, and earns an F PlainCrime safety grade, where violent crime runs 85% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Panama City, FL shows violent crime at 649.5 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 2,188.5 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 85% 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 649.5 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Panama City ranks 12 of 126 — above 114 of the 125 other Florida cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +237.0% 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.
Comparable rate records
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Panama City's 649.5 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are St. Petersburg (619.6), Palmetto (607.5), North Miami Beach (582.5), Lake Park (580.4). 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 22.9% of the 1,040 Part I offenses reported in Panama City for 2024, against a median of 13.3% across comparable Florida cities — a gap of 9.6 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.
2020–2024 direction
Across 4 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 873.9 per 100,000 in 2020 to 649.5 in 2024 (-25.7%). The highest observed value was 873.9 in 2020 and the lowest 649.5 in 2024. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property counts dominate Panama City'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 35.5 Census sq mi, Panama City logged 22.6 property and 6.7 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Panama City's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (59% of 1,040 offenses; mix index 4,116).
Violent offenses are 23% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
Panama City offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (35.5 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 | 802 | 2188.5 |
| Larceny-Theft | 616 | 1680.9 |
| Burglary | 147 | 401.1 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 39 | 106.4 |
| Arson | 1 | 2.7 |
| Violent Crime | 238 | 649.5 |
| Aggravated Assault | 205 | 559.4 |
| Rape | 21 | 57.3 |
| Robbery | 9 | 24.6 |
| Murder | 3 | 8.2 |
The chart omits 2021 rather than drawing an unsupported zero or partial-coverage dip. The table preserves the year and marks the gap.
Lead series · fell across 4 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · fell · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 34,672 | 873.9 | 4208 |
| 2021 | Insufficient reporting | 33,651 | - | - |
| 2022 | Comparable | 35,384 | 678.3 | 2916.6 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 35,684 | 734.2 | 2589.4 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 36,646 | 649.5 | 2188.5 |
Panama City Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Panama City's 1,040 reported offenses (4-year span 2020-2024, 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 Florida cities closest to Panama City in population. Their populations run from 33,435 to 41,656, against 36,646 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Panama City sits at 649.5/100K violent (grade F); the Florida cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Panama City at 649.5/100K violent and 2,188.5/100K property - matched below outside Florida (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
649.5/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
2,188.5/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
Out-of-state cities whose violent rate moved a similar share from 2023→2024 (-11.5% here); level-based peers above are excluded.
In 2024, Panama City reported 238 violent crimes and 802 property crimes, for a total of 1,040 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Panama City's violent crime rate decreased by 11.5%, and the property crime rate decreased by 15.5%.
The most common crime type in Panama City is larceny-theft, accounting for 59.2% of all reported crimes (616 incidents in 2024).
Mid-size read: Panama City 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 Panama City's mid-size city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Panama City, FL rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.
Bulk download: city crime dataset (CSV/JSON)
Put this to use
Put the Panama City, FL 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. Panama City is scored in the mid-size municipal band (36,646 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.