Sylacauga, AL has a F safety grade (14/100) with a violent crime rate of 562 per 100,000, 60% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · mid-size city
Sylacauga (12,109 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
Sylacauga, AL carries a PlainCrime F safety grade with violent crime 60% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Sylacauga, AL shows violent crime at 561.6 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 3,476.8 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 60% 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 217.5 per 100,000 in 2020 to 561.6 in 2024 (+158.2%). The highest observed value was 767.3 in 2021 and the lowest 217.5 in 2020. 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 Sylacauga's 561.6 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Opelika (560.3), Adamsville (559.5), Tuscaloosa (553.4), Greenville (577.8). 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 561.6 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Sylacauga ranks 54 of 263 — above 209 of the 262 other Alabama cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +163.0% against the cohort median of 213.5. Cities that did not report, or that reported implausibly low totals, are excluded from this cohort rather than counted as low-crime.
Property counts dominate Sylacauga'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 20.3 Census sq mi, Sylacauga logged 20.8 property and 3.4 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Sylacauga's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (61% of 489 offenses; mix index 4,348).
Violent offenses are only 14% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Sylacauga offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (20.3 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 | 421 | 3476.8 |
| Larceny-Theft | 298 | 2461 |
| Burglary | 106 | 875.4 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 17 | 140.4 |
| Arson | 4 | 33 |
| Violent Crime | 68 | 561.6 |
| Aggravated Assault | 60 | 495.5 |
| Robbery | 4 | 33 |
| Rape | 3 | 24.8 |
| Murder | 1 | 8.3 |
Lead series · rose across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · rose · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 11,955 | 217.5 | 1580.9 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 11,859 | 767.3 | 3963.2 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 12,205 | 614.5 | 2769.4 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 12,145 | 642.2 | 2865.4 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 12,109 | 561.6 | 3476.8 |
Sylacauga Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Sylacauga's 489 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 Sylacauga in population. Their populations run from 10,241 to 13,720, against 12,109 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Sylacauga sits at 561.6/100K violent (grade F); the Alabama cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Sylacauga at 561.6/100K violent and 3,476.8/100K property - matched below outside Alabama (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
561.6/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
3,476.8/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
In 2024, Sylacauga reported 68 violent crimes and 421 property crimes, for a total of 489 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Sylacauga's violent crime rate decreased by 12.6%, and the property crime rate increased by 21.3%.
The most common crime type in Sylacauga is larceny-theft, accounting for 60.9% of all reported crimes (298 incidents in 2024).
Mid-size read: Sylacauga 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 Sylacauga's mid-size city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Sylacauga, 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. Sylacauga is scored in the mid-size municipal band (12,109 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.