Rapid City, SD has a F safety grade (0/100) with a violent crime rate of 719 per 100,000, 104% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · large city
Rapid City, SD Crime Rate & Safety
At 80,957 residents, Rapid City is a large city: FBI UCR Table 8 rates (per 100,000) here are read against SD and U.S. averages before the offense-family breakdown.
Rapid City, SD carries a PlainCrime F safety grade with violent crime 104% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Rapid City, SD shows violent crime at 718.9 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 3,792.1 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 104% 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.
F safety grade
718.9/100K violent
3792.1/100K property
+104% vs U.S.
What the 2024 FBI UCR record shows for Rapid City, SD
Position in the state cohort
Rapid City reported a higher violent-crime rate than most comparable South Dakota cities
At 718.9 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Rapid City ranks 2 of 39 — above 37 of the 38 other South Dakota cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +269.4% against the cohort median of 194.6. 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
Rapid City's closest reported-rate comparisons are in the South Dakota cohort
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Rapid City's 718.9 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Wagner (639.7), Sioux Falls (526.7), Centerville (516.5), Pierre (506.4). 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.
Share of the state cohort
Rapid City carries a large share of the reporting cohort’s total offenses
The 3,652 Part I offenses reported here are 24.5% of the 14,922 reported across all 39 comparable South Dakota 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 80,957 rather than as a uniform shift.
2020–2024 direction
The reported violent-crime rate ended the window lower
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 851.0 per 100,000 in 2020 to 718.9 in 2024 (-15.5%). The highest observed value was 851.0 in 2020 and the lowest 669.5 in 2021. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property counts dominate Rapid 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.
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.
Rapid City's 2024 municipal footprint
Across 56 Census sq mi, Rapid City logged 54.8 property and 10.4 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Rapid City's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (66% of 3,652 offenses; mix index 4,668).
Violent offenses are 16% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (56 sq mi); mix index is HHI x 10,000 on the offense-type shares above. Distinct from the per-100K rates in the hero.
Both rates shifted (2023→2024)
Violent Crime Rate
-3.1%
742.1 → 718.9/100K
Property Crime Rate
-2.9%
3904.8 → 3792.1/100K
Property offenses lead Rapid City's 2024 record
Offense
Count
Rate /100K
vs SD
vs US avg
Property Crime
3,070
3792.1
1535.5
1711
Larceny-Theft
2,418
2986.8
-
-
Burglary
346
427.4
-
-
Motor Vehicle Theft
306
378
-
-
Arson
3
3.7
-
-
Violent Crime
582
718.9
320
352
Aggravated Assault
383
473.1
-
-
Rape
110
135.9
-
-
Robbery
84
103.8
-
-
Murder
5
6.2
-
-
Rapid City Crime Trend (2020-2024)
Rapid City 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
Rapid City Police Department
Reporting agency for Rapid City NIBRS-participating
Rapid City Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Rapid City's 3,652 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 South Dakota
Crime rates read differently at different scales, so these are the South Dakota cities closest to Rapid City in population. Their populations run from 13,822 to 28,004, against 80,957 here. Or use our
side-by-side compare tool
to benchmark two cities directly.
Rapid City at 718.9/100K violent and 3,792.1/100K property - matched below outside South Dakota (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
In 2024, Rapid City reported 582 violent crimes and 3,070 property crimes, for a total of 3,652 reported offenses.
Is crime increasing or decreasing in Rapid City?
From 2023 to 2024, Rapid City's violent crime rate decreased by 3.1%, and the property crime rate decreased by 2.9%.
What is the most common crime in Rapid City?
The most common crime type in Rapid City is larceny-theft, accounting for 66.2% of all reported crimes (2,418 incidents in 2024).
Large-city read: Rapid City'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 Rapid City, SD rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.