Zachary, LA has a C safety grade (49/100) with a violent crime rate of 333 per 100,000, 6% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · mid-size city
Zachary (20,142 people) sits in the mid-size municipal band. This page opens with per-100,000 FBI UCR rates, then LA and national benchmarks.
Data updated 2026-09-05
Zachary, LA is higher-crime than most U.S. cities, and earns a C PlainCrime safety grade, where violent crime runs 6% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Zachary, LA shows violent crime at 332.6 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 2,020.7 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 6% below the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade C 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 Zachary's 332.6 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Kenner (344.7), Gonzales (364.7), Haynesville (367.6), Oak Grove (296.1). 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 332.6 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Zachary ranks 43 of 66 — above 23 of the 65 other Louisiana cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is -22.1% against the cohort median of 426.8. 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 399.3 per 100,000 in 2020 to 332.6 in 2024 (-16.7%). The highest observed value was 559.3 in 2021 and the lowest 332.6 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 14.1% of the 474 Part I offenses reported in Zachary for 2024, against a median of 18.6% across comparable Louisiana cities — a gap of 4.5 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 counts dominate Zachary'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 26.9 Census sq mi, Zachary logged 15.2 property and 2.5 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Zachary's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (65% of 474 offenses; mix index 4,612).
Violent offenses are only 14% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Zachary offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (26.9 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 | 407 | 2020.7 |
| Larceny-Theft | 309 | 1534.1 |
| Burglary | 54 | 268.1 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 44 | 218.4 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 67 | 332.6 |
| Aggravated Assault | 57 | 283 |
| Robbery | 5 | 24.8 |
| Rape | 4 | 19.9 |
| Murder | 1 | 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 | 18,283 | 399.3 | 2351.9 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 18,774 | 559.3 | 2961.5 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 20,344 | 353.9 | 1936.7 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 20,148 | 342.5 | 2228.5 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 20,142 | 332.6 | 2020.7 |
Zachary Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Zachary's 474 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 Louisiana cities closest to Zachary in population. Their populations run from 14,259 to 22,259, against 20,142 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Zachary sits at 332.6/100K violent (grade C); the Louisiana cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Zachary at 332.6/100K violent and 2,020.7/100K property - matched below outside Louisiana (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
332.6/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
2,020.7/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
In 2024, Zachary reported 67 violent crimes and 407 property crimes, for a total of 474 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Zachary's violent crime rate decreased by 2.9%, and the property crime rate decreased by 9.3%.
The most common crime type in Zachary is larceny-theft, accounting for 65.2% of all reported crimes (309 incidents in 2024).
Mid-size read: Zachary 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 Zachary's mid-size city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Zachary, LA rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.
Bulk download: city crime dataset (CSV/JSON)
Put this to use
Put the Zachary, LA FBI UCR record to work: compare peers, open the state atlas, or look up another city.
A citywide UCR rate is a starting point, not a neighbourhood verdict: read the full profile and the year coverage notes before drawing conclusions.
Every figure on PlainCrime is rendered directly from FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) source data, no number is typed in by an editor. Zachary is scored in the mid-size municipal band (20,142 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.