Providence, RI has a C safety grade (58/100) with a violent crime rate of 277 per 100,000, 21% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · large city
At 193,679 residents, Providence is a large city: FBI UCR Table 8 rates (per 100,000) here are read against RI and U.S. averages before the offense-family breakdown.
Data updated 2026-08-24
Providence, RI carries a PlainCrime C safety grade with violent crime 21% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Providence, RI shows violent crime at 276.7 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 1,657.9 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 21% 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.
Position in the state cohort
At 276.7 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Providence ranks 4 of 35 — above 31 of the 34 other Rhode Island cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +304.9% against the cohort median of 68.4. 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 Providence's 276.7 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Pawtucket (307.6), Central Falls (323.4), West Warwick (198.9), Newport (176.3). 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.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 484.4 per 100,000 in 2020 to 276.7 in 2024 (-42.9%). The highest observed value was 484.4 in 2020 and the lowest 276.7 in 2024. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Share of the state cohort
The 3,747 Part I offenses reported here are 29.7% of the 12,626 reported across all 35 comparable Rhode Island cities in 2024. A city this large moves the statewide municipal total on its own, so state-level changes should be read against its population of 193,679 rather than as a uniform shift.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 14.3% of the 3,747 Part I offenses reported in Providence for 2024, against a median of 10.3% across comparable Rhode Island cities — a gap of 4.0 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 Providence'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 18.4 Census sq mi, Providence logged 174.5 property and 29.1 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Providence's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (69% of 3,747 offenses; mix index 4,992).
Violent offenses are only 14% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Providence offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (18.4 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 | 3,211 | 1657.9 |
| Larceny-Theft | 2,576 | 1330 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 408 | 210.7 |
| Burglary | 227 | 117.2 |
| Arson | 1 | 0.5 |
| Violent Crime | 536 | 276.7 |
| Aggravated Assault | 376 | 194.1 |
| Robbery | 108 | 55.8 |
| Rape | 40 | 20.7 |
| Murder | 12 | 6.2 |
Lead series · fell across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · fell · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 179,603 | 484.4 | 2431.5 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 185,868 | 398.1 | 2537.8 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 189,064 | 343.8 | 2541.5 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 189,590 | 312.8 | 1915.2 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 193,679 | 276.7 | 1657.9 |
Providence Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Providence's 3,747 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 Rhode Island cities closest to Providence in population. Their populations run from 34,355 to 84,297, against 193,679 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Providence sits at 276.7/100K violent (grade C); the Rhode Island cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Providence at 276.7/100K violent and 1,657.9/100K property - matched below outside Rhode Island (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
276.7/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
1,657.9/100K 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, Providence reported 536 violent crimes and 3,211 property crimes, for a total of 3,747 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Providence's violent crime rate decreased by 11.5%, and the property crime rate decreased by 13.4%.
The most common crime type in Providence is larceny-theft, accounting for 68.7% of all reported crimes (2,576 incidents in 2024).
Large-city read: Providence'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 Providence's large city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Providence, RI 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. Providence is scored here as a large city UCR reporter (193,679 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.