Waco, TX has a D safety grade (39/100) with a violent crime rate of 426 per 100,000, 21% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · large city
At 146,270 residents, Waco is a large city: FBI UCR Table 8 rates (per 100,000) here are read against TX and U.S. averages before the offense-family breakdown.
Data updated 2026-08-24
Waco, TX carries a PlainCrime D safety grade with violent crime 21% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Waco, TX shows violent crime at 425.9 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 2,126.2 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 21% 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.
Comparable rate records
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Waco's 425.9 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Commerce (427.4), Abilene (424.5), Levelland (424.0), Athens (422.8). 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 425.9 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Waco ranks 98 of 686 — above 588 of the 685 other Texas cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +138.0% against the cohort median of 178.9. Cities that did not report, or that reported implausibly low totals, are excluded from this cohort rather than counted as low-crime.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 646.0 per 100,000 in 2020 to 425.9 in 2024 (-34.1%). The highest observed value was 722.6 in 2021 and the lowest 425.9 in 2024. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property counts dominate Waco'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.
On a large city row, these are citywide reported offense totals - not neighbourhood advice. Conditions vary by place and time; reporting rates differ across jurisdictions.
Across 91 Census sq mi, Waco logged 34.2 property and 6.8 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Waco's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (64% of 3,733 offenses; mix index 4,391).
Violent offenses are 17% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
Waco offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (91 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 | 3,110 | 2126.2 |
| Larceny-Theft | 2,379 | 1626.4 |
| Burglary | 431 | 294.7 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 300 | 205.1 |
| Arson | 8 | 5.5 |
| Violent Crime | 623 | 425.9 |
| Aggravated Assault | 398 | 272.1 |
| Rape | 133 | 90.9 |
| Robbery | 84 | 57.4 |
| Murder | 8 | 5.5 |
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 | 140,870 | 646 | 3469.9 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 143,089 | 722.6 | 3348.3 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 140,911 | 644.4 | 3256.7 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 145,741 | 506.4 | 2662.9 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 146,270 | 425.9 | 2126.2 |
Waco Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Waco's 3,733 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 Texas cities closest to Waco in population. Their populations run from 133,471 to 161,667, against 146,270 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Waco sits at 425.9/100K violent (grade D); the Texas cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Waco at 425.9/100K violent and 2,126.2/100K property - matched below outside Texas (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
425.9/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
2,126.2/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
Out-of-state cities whose violent rate moved a similar share from 2023→2024 (-15.9% here); level-based peers above are excluded.
In 2024, Waco reported 623 violent crimes and 3,110 property crimes, for a total of 3,733 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Waco's violent crime rate decreased by 15.9%, and the property crime rate decreased by 20.2%.
The most common crime type in Waco is larceny-theft, accounting for 63.7% of all reported crimes (2,379 incidents in 2024).
Large-city read: Waco's rates come from the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, CIUS Table 8, vintage 2024.
Incomplete reporters stay out of rate rankings. Cross-check population with Census ACS; state UCR programs for statewide context. Primary verify links: FBI.gov UCR, Census QuickFacts.
Disclaimer (large city): informational crime rates only - not legal, insurance, or personal-safety advice. Source: FBI UCR. Ask a qualified professional before acting.
Large-city rate methodology for how Waco's large city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Waco, TX 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. Waco is scored here as a large city UCR reporter (146,270 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.