South Bethany, DE has a A+ safety grade (95/100) with a violent crime rate of 0 per 100,000, .
South Bethany's UCR row covers a small municipal population (520). Rates below are per 100,000 and sit next to DE and U.S. averages.
South Bethany, DE FBI UCR crime rates and PlainCrime safety grade
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, South Bethany, DE shows violent crime at 0 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 576.9 per 100,000. PlainCrime assigns grade A+ from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
The verdict
South Bethany: among the safest cities in the country.
Based on 0 reported violent incidents in a population of 520. 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.
Small-count caution
South Bethany reported 0 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 520. 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 185.2 per 100,000 in 2020 to 0.0 in 2024 (-100.0%). The highest observed value was 204.1 in 2022 and the lowest 0.0 in 2021. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Position in the state cohort
At 0.0 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, South Bethany ranks 36 of 38 — above 0 of the 37 other Delaware cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is -100.0% against the cohort median of 309.7. 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 South Bethany's 0.0 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Ellendale (0.0), Viola (0.0), Townsend (34.9), Ocean View (65.9). 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 0.0% of the 3 Part I offenses reported in South Bethany for 2024, against a median of 14.3% across comparable Delaware cities — a gap of 14.3 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 100.0% of reported property offenses in South Bethany, against a cohort median of 80.7%. The remainder is burglary (0) and motor vehicle theft (0). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Property counts dominate South Bethany'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 0 reported violent incidents in a population of 520. 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.
| Offense | Count | Rate /100K |
|---|---|---|
| Property Crime | 3 | 576.9 |
| Larceny-Theft | 3 | 576.9 |
| Burglary | 0 | 0 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 0 | 0 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 0 | 0 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
| Rape | 0 | 0 |
| Robbery | 0 | 0 |
| Aggravated Assault | 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 | 540 | 185.2 | 2037 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 557 | 0 | 718.1 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 490 | 204.1 | 1020.4 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 507 | 197.2 | 1972.4 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 520 | 0 | 576.9 |
South Bethany's crime figures on this page originate from South Bethany Police Department's submission to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Program.
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 Delaware cities closest to South Bethany in population. Their populations run from 149 to 1,093, against 520 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
These Delaware cities report the closest violent-crime rates to South Bethany's 0/100K (same FBI UCR vintage rules; size peers above are excluded so the two lists stay distinct).
Micro-municipal read: South Bethany'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 South Bethany's small municipal row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 South Bethany, DE 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. South Bethany is scored as a small municipal UCR reporter (520 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.