Saraland, AL has a A safety grade (77/100) with a violent crime rate of 85 per 100,000, 76% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · mid-size city
Saraland (16,505 people) sits in the mid-size municipal band. This page opens with per-100,000 FBI UCR rates, then AL and national benchmarks.
Data updated 2026-08-24
Saraland, AL carries a PlainCrime A safety grade with violent crime 76% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Saraland, AL shows violent crime at 84.8 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 1,702.5 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 76% 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.
Small-count caution
Saraland reported 14 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 16,505. 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.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 203.4 per 100,000 in 2020 to 84.8 in 2024 (-58.3%). The highest observed value was 210.0 in 2021 and the lowest 84.8 in 2024. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Comparable rate records
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Saraland's 84.8 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Ashford (84.9), Hokes Bluff (84.7), Rainbow City (86.9), Vestavia Hills (82.3). 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.
Position in the state cohort
At 84.8 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Saraland ranks 211 of 263 — above 52 of the 262 other Alabama cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is -60.9% against the cohort median of 217.1. Cities that did not report, or that reported implausibly low totals, are excluded from this cohort rather than counted as low-crime.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 4.7% of the 295 Part I offenses reported in Saraland for 2024, against a median of 13.9% across comparable Alabama cities — a gap of 9.1 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 88.6% of reported property offenses in Saraland, against a cohort median of 74.2%. The remainder is burglary (15) and motor vehicle theft (17). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Property counts dominate Saraland'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 14 reported violent incidents in a population of 16,505. 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 34.2 Census sq mi, Saraland logged 8.2 property and 0.4 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Saraland's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (84% of 295 offenses; mix index 7,193).
Violent offenses are only 5% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Saraland offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (34.2 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 | 281 | 1702.5 |
| Larceny-Theft | 249 | 1508.6 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 17 | 103 |
| Burglary | 15 | 90.9 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 14 | 84.8 |
| Aggravated Assault | 8 | 48.5 |
| Rape | 4 | 24.2 |
| Robbery | 2 | 12.1 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
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 | 14,751 | 203.4 | 3186.2 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 14,764 | 210 | 1605.3 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 16,459 | 139.7 | 1974.6 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 16,454 | 127.6 | 2145.4 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 16,505 | 84.8 | 1702.5 |
Saraland Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Saraland's 295 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 Alabama cities closest to Saraland in population. Their populations run from 15,960 to 17,633, against 16,505 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Saraland sits at 84.8/100K violent (grade A); the Alabama cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Saraland at 84.8/100K violent and 1,702.5/100K property - matched below outside Alabama (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
84.8/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
1,702.5/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
In 2024, Saraland reported 14 violent crimes and 281 property crimes, for a total of 295 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Saraland's violent crime rate decreased by 33.5%, and the property crime rate decreased by 20.6%.
The most common crime type in Saraland is larceny-theft, accounting for 84.4% of all reported crimes (249 incidents in 2024).
Mid-size read: Saraland 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 Saraland's mid-size city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Saraland, AL 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. Saraland is scored in the mid-size municipal band (16,505 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.