Sandusky, OH has a D safety grade (39/100) with a violent crime rate of 388 per 100,000, 10% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · mid-size city
Sandusky (23,981 people) sits in the mid-size municipal band. This page opens with per-100,000 FBI UCR rates, then OH and national benchmarks.
Data updated 2026-08-24
Sandusky, OH carries a PlainCrime D safety grade with violent crime 10% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Sandusky, OH shows violent crime at 387.8 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 2,589.6 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 10% above the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade D 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 163.8 per 100,000 in 2020 to 387.8 in 2024 (+136.8%). The highest observed value was 387.8 in 2024 and the lowest 122.3 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 387.8 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Sandusky ranks 35 of 340 — above 305 of the 339 other Ohio cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +242.9% against the cohort median of 113.1. 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 Sandusky's 387.8 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Newburgh Heights (388.0), Greenhills (385.7), Lancaster (405.4), West Carrollton (351.6). 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.
Property counts dominate Sandusky'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 9.6 Census sq mi, Sandusky logged 64.5 property and 9.7 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Sandusky's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (69% of 714 offenses; mix index 5,094).
Violent offenses are only 13% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Sandusky offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (9.6 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 | 621 | 2589.6 |
| Larceny-Theft | 495 | 2064.1 |
| Burglary | 95 | 396.1 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 31 | 129.3 |
| Arson | 4 | 16.7 |
| Violent Crime | 93 | 387.8 |
| Aggravated Assault | 66 | 275.2 |
| Rape | 12 | 50 |
| Robbery | 12 | 50 |
| Murder | 3 | 12.5 |
Lead series · fell across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · rose · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 24,422 | 163.8 | 3017.8 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 24,172 | 153.1 | 2527.7 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 24,531 | 122.3 | 2217.6 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 24,273 | 144.2 | 2364.8 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 23,981 | 387.8 | 2589.6 |
Sandusky Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Sandusky's 714 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 Ohio cities closest to Sandusky in population. Their populations run from 22,895 to 24,925, against 23,981 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Sandusky sits at 387.8/100K violent (grade D); the Ohio cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Sandusky at 387.8/100K violent and 2,589.6/100K property - matched below outside Ohio (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
387.8/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
2,589.6/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
In 2024, Sandusky reported 93 violent crimes and 621 property crimes, for a total of 714 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Sandusky's violent crime rate increased by 168.9%, and the property crime rate increased by 9.5%.
The most common crime type in Sandusky is larceny-theft, accounting for 69.3% of all reported crimes (495 incidents in 2024).
Mid-size read: Sandusky 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 Sandusky's mid-size city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Sandusky, OH 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. Sandusky is scored in the mid-size municipal band (23,981 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.