West Memphis, AR has a F safety grade (0/100) with a violent crime rate of 1922 per 100,000, 446% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · mid-size city
West Memphis (23,617 people) sits in the mid-size municipal band. This page opens with per-100,000 FBI UCR rates, then AR and national benchmarks.
Data updated 2026-08-24
West Memphis, AR carries a PlainCrime F safety grade with violent crime 446% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, West Memphis, AR shows violent crime at 1,922.3 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 4,657.7 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 446% 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.
Position in the state cohort
At 1922.3 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, West Memphis ranks 1 of 204 — above 203 of the 203 other Arkansas cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +527.8% against the cohort median of 306.2. 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 West Memphis's 1922.3 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Marianna (1819.3), Little Rock (1672.0), Helena-West Helena (1630.2), Pine Bluff (1580.8). 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.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 2516.0 per 100,000 in 2020 to 1922.3 in 2024 (-23.6%). The highest observed value was 2713.0 in 2021 and the lowest 1922.3 in 2024. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 29.2% of the 1,554 Part I offenses reported in West Memphis for 2024, against a median of 21.0% across comparable Arkansas cities — a gap of 8.2 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 64.5% of reported property offenses in West Memphis, against a cohort median of 74.8%. The remainder is burglary (252) and motor vehicle theft (138). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Property counts dominate West Memphis'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 29.8 Census sq mi, West Memphis logged 36.9 property and 15.2 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
West Memphis leans on larceny-theft at 46% of reported offenses, with a moderate mix index of 2,980.
Violent offenses are 29% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
West Memphis offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (29.8 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 | 1,100 | 4657.7 |
| Larceny-Theft | 710 | 3006.3 |
| Burglary | 252 | 1067 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 138 | 584.3 |
| Arson | 4 | 16.9 |
| Violent Crime | 454 | 1922.3 |
| Aggravated Assault | 360 | 1524.3 |
| Robbery | 48 | 203.2 |
| Rape | 29 | 122.8 |
| Murder | 17 | 72 |
Lead series · rose across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · fell · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 24,205 | 2516 | 4631.3 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 23,959 | 2713 | 4052.8 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 23,809 | 2641.9 | 4809.1 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 23,466 | 2510 | 4973.2 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 23,617 | 1922.3 | 4657.7 |
West Memphis Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind West Memphis's 1,554 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 Arkansas cities closest to West Memphis in population. Their populations run from 19,516 to 28,958, against 23,617 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
West Memphis sits at 1,922.3/100K violent (grade F); the Arkansas cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
West Memphis at 1,922.3/100K violent and 4,657.7/100K property - matched below outside Arkansas (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
1,922.3/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
4,657.7/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
In 2024, West Memphis reported 454 violent crimes and 1,100 property crimes, for a total of 1,554 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, West Memphis's violent crime rate decreased by 23.4%, and the property crime rate decreased by 6.3%.
The most common crime type in West Memphis is larceny-theft, accounting for 45.7% of all reported crimes (710 incidents in 2024).
Mid-size read: West Memphis 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 West Memphis's mid-size city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 West Memphis, AR 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. West Memphis is scored in the mid-size municipal band (23,617 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.