Watertown, SD has a B safety grade (61/100) with a violent crime rate of 303 per 100,000, 14% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · mid-size city
Watertown (23,417 people) sits in the mid-size municipal band. This page opens with per-100,000 FBI UCR rates, then SD and national benchmarks.
Data updated 2026-08-24
Watertown, SD carries a PlainCrime B safety grade with violent crime 14% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Watertown, SD shows violent crime at 303.2 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 1,024.9 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 14% below the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade B 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 Watertown's 303.2 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Huron (291.7), Mobridge (279.8), Yankton (273.9), Aberdeen (267.8). 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 303.2 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Watertown ranks 10 of 39 — above 29 of the 38 other South Dakota cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +55.8% against the cohort median of 194.6. 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 251.7 per 100,000 in 2020 to 303.2 in 2024 (+20.5%). The highest observed value was 303.2 in 2024 and the lowest 219.0 in 2022. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 22.8% of the 311 Part I offenses reported in Watertown for 2024, against a median of 15.9% across comparable South Dakota cities — a gap of 6.9 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 86.7% of reported property offenses in Watertown, against a cohort median of 78.1%. The remainder is burglary (16) and motor vehicle theft (16). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Property counts dominate Watertown'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 18.4 Census sq mi, Watertown logged 13 property and 3.9 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Watertown's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (67% of 311 offenses; mix index 4,874).
Violent offenses are 23% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
Watertown offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (18.4 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 | 240 | 1024.9 |
| Larceny-Theft | 208 | 888.2 |
| Burglary | 16 | 68.3 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 16 | 68.3 |
| Arson | 1 | 4.3 |
| Violent Crime | 71 | 303.2 |
| Aggravated Assault | 56 | 239.1 |
| Rape | 15 | 64.1 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
| Robbery | 0 | 0 |
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 | 22,248 | 251.7 | 1860.8 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 22,383 | 223.4 | 1344.8 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 22,832 | 219 | 1559.2 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 23,193 | 288.9 | 1681.5 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 23,417 | 303.2 | 1024.9 |
Watertown Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Watertown's 311 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 South Dakota cities closest to Watertown in population. Their populations run from 13,657 to 28,004, against 23,417 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Watertown sits at 303.2/100K violent (grade B); the South Dakota cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Watertown at 303.2/100K violent and 1,024.9/100K property - matched below outside South Dakota (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
303.2/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
1,024.9/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
In 2024, Watertown reported 71 violent crimes and 240 property crimes, for a total of 311 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Watertown's violent crime rate increased by 4.9%, and the property crime rate decreased by 39%.
The most common crime type in Watertown is larceny-theft, accounting for 66.9% of all reported crimes (208 incidents in 2024).
Mid-size read: Watertown 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 Watertown's mid-size city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Watertown, SD 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. Watertown is scored in the mid-size municipal band (23,417 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.