Petal, MS has a A safety grade (84/100) with a violent crime rate of 130 per 100,000, 63% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · mid-size city
Petal (11,505 people) sits in the mid-size municipal band. This page opens with per-100,000 FBI UCR rates, then MS and national benchmarks.
Data updated 2026-09-05
Petal, MS is close to the national middle for violent crime, and earns an A PlainCrime safety grade, where violent crime runs 63% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Petal, MS shows violent crime at 130.4 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 391.1 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 63% below the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade A 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 56.3 per 100,000 in 2020 to 130.4 in 2024 (+131.5%). The highest observed value was 140.0 in 2021 and the lowest 52.9 in 2023. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Small-count caution
Petal reported 15 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 11,505. At this volume one additional or one fewer report moves the per-100,000 rate noticeably, so the figure is better read as a data point than as a precise measurement, and year-to-year swings here are expected.
Comparable rate records
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Petal's 130.4 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Oxford (127.1), Bay St. Louis (119.3), Tunica (116.1), Horn Lake (109.9). 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.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 25.0% of the 60 Part I offenses reported in Petal for 2024, against a median of 10.1% across comparable Mississippi cities — a gap of 14.9 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.
Property-offense composition
Larceny-theft is 53.3% of reported property offenses in Petal, against a cohort median of 76.1%. The remainder is burglary (17) and motor vehicle theft (4). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Position in the state cohort
At 130.4 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Petal ranks 38 of 63 — above 25 of the 62 other Mississippi cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is -32.7% against the cohort median of 193.7. Cities that did not report, or that reported implausibly low totals, are excluded from this cohort rather than counted as low-crime.
Property counts dominate Petal'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.
Based on 15 reported violent incidents in a population of 11,505. At this volume, one additional or one fewer report can shift the rate and letter grade noticeably; small-city crime counts are inherently more volatile year to year than large-city counts, so treat this grade as a data point, not a precise ranking.
Mid-size municipal totals above are reported offenses, not safety advice for any single block. Reporting completeness still varies by year and agency.
Across 16.9 Census sq mi, Petal logged 2.7 property and 0.9 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Petal leans on larceny-theft at 40% of reported offenses, with a moderate mix index of 2,728.
Violent offenses are 25% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
Petal offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (16.9 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 | 45 | 391.1 |
| Larceny-Theft | 24 | 208.6 |
| Burglary | 17 | 147.8 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 4 | 34.8 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 15 | 130.4 |
| Aggravated Assault | 8 | 69.5 |
| Rape | 6 | 52.2 |
| Murder | 1 | 8.7 |
| Robbery | 0 | 0 |
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 | 10,652 | 56.3 | 384.9 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 10,717 | 140 | 513.2 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 11,580 | 69.1 | 466.3 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 11,338 | 52.9 | 379.3 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 11,505 | 130.4 | 391.1 |
Petal Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Petal's 60 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 Mississippi cities closest to Petal in population. Their populations run from 8,263 to 14,142, against 11,505 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Petal sits at 130.4/100K violent (grade A); the Mississippi cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Petal at 130.4/100K violent and 391.1/100K property - matched below outside Mississippi (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
130.4/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
391.1/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
In 2024, Petal reported 15 violent crimes and 45 property crimes, for a total of 60 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Petal's violent crime rate increased by 146.5%, and the property crime rate increased by 3.1%.
The most common crime type in Petal is larceny-theft, accounting for 40.0% of all reported crimes (24 incidents in 2024).
Mid-size read: Petal 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 Petal's mid-size city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Petal, MS rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.
Bulk download: city crime dataset (CSV/JSON)
Put this to use
Put the Petal, MS 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. Petal is scored in the mid-size municipal band (11,505 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.