Rocky Top, TN has a F safety grade (0/100) with a violent crime rate of 1523 per 100,000, 333% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · small municipal
Rocky Top's UCR row covers a small municipal population (1,642). Rates below are per 100,000 and sit next to TN and U.S. averages.
Data updated 2026-09-05
Rocky Top, TN is among the highest-crime cities in the country, and earns an F PlainCrime safety grade, where violent crime runs 333% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Rocky Top, TN shows violent crime at 1,522.5 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 3,593.2 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 333% 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.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 732.8 per 100,000 in 2020 to 1522.5 in 2024 (+107.8%). The highest observed value was 1522.5 in 2024 and the lowest 417.4 in 2022. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Position in the state cohort
At 1522.5 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Rocky Top ranks 3 of 176 — above 173 of the 175 other Tennessee cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +410.2% against the cohort median of 298.4. Cities that did not report, or that reported implausibly low totals, are excluded from this cohort rather than counted as low-crime.
Small-count caution
Rocky Top reported 25 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 1,642. 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 Rocky Top's 1522.5 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Ripley (1742.6), Bolivar (1269.8), Dyersburg (1256.5), Fayetteville (1150.2). 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 29.8% of the 84 Part I offenses reported in Rocky Top for 2024, against a median of 18.7% across comparable Tennessee cities — a gap of 11.0 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 Rocky Top'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 25 reported violent incidents in a population of 1,642. 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.
On a small municipal row, small denominators make rates sensitive to a handful of incidents. Figures are reported totals, not neighbourhood advice.
Across 1.6 Census sq mi, Rocky Top logged 36.4 property and 15.4 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Rocky Top's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (56% of 84 offenses; mix index 4,062).
Violent offenses are 30% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
Rocky Top offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (1.6 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 | 59 | 3593.2 |
| Larceny-Theft | 47 | 2862.4 |
| Burglary | 8 | 487.2 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 4 | 243.6 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 25 | 1522.5 |
| Aggravated Assault | 24 | 1461.6 |
| Robbery | 1 | 60.9 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
| Rape | 0 | 0 |
The chart omits 2022 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 · rose · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 1,774 | 732.8 | 6877.1 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 1,776 | 1069.8 | 6418.9 |
| 2022 | Insufficient reporting | 3,594 | - | - |
| 2023 | Comparable | 1,630 | 981.6 | 5214.7 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 1,642 | 1522.5 | 3593.2 |
Rocky Top Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Rocky Top's 84 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 Tennessee cities closest to Rocky Top in population. Their populations run from 1,566 to 1,694, against 1,642 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Rocky Top sits at 1,522.5/100K violent (grade F); the Tennessee cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
In 2024, Rocky Top reported 25 violent crimes and 59 property crimes, for a total of 84 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Rocky Top's violent crime rate increased by 55.1%, and the property crime rate decreased by 31.1%.
The most common crime type in Rocky Top is larceny-theft, accounting for 56.0% of all reported crimes (47 incidents in 2024).
Micro-municipal read: Rocky Top's FBI UCR Table 8 row (2024) is the only source for the rates above.
With a small population base, per-100,000 rates amplify sparse counts. Incomplete submissions are excluded from rankings. See FBI.gov UCR for the raw Table 8 file.
Disclaimer (small municipal): small-base rates are especially easy to misread. Informational only - not advice. Source: FBI UCR Program.
Micro-municipal rate methodology for how Rocky Top's small municipal row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Rocky Top, TN rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.
Bulk download: city crime dataset (CSV/JSON)
Put this to use
Put the Rocky Top, TN 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. Rocky Top is scored as a small municipal UCR reporter (1,642 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.