County crime profile · 2024 · mid-size county · property-led
Whitley County, KY
Whitley County (36,712 people) sits in the mid-size county band in Kentucky. This page opens with reported offense counts, then rates where a Census join exists.
Compiled by PlainCrime, Independent crime-data publisher
Data updated 2026-07-13
103
Property offenses
18
Violent offenses
121
Total · 2024
Whitley County, KY reported 49 violent crimes per 100,000 in FBI UCR 2024
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Whitley County, KY agencies reported 18 violent and 103 property offenses. That equals about 49 violent and 281 property crimes per 100,000 using a verified Census population join. Table 10 coverage is a voluntary subset of U.S. counties.
2024 UCR year
18 violent offenses
49/100K violent rate
What the 2024 FBI UCR record shows for Whitley County, KY
Small-count caution
The violent-crime count is small enough that the derived rate is unstable
Whitley County reported 18 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 36,712. At this volume one additional or one fewer report moves the per-100,000 rate noticeably, so the figure is better read as a data point than as a precise measurement, and year-to-year swings here are expected.
Position in the state cohort
Whitley County reported a higher violent-crime rate than most comparable Kentucky counties
At 49.0 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Whitley County ranks 24 of 113 — above 89 of the 112 other Kentucky counties whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test and carries a matched Census denominator. That is +91.4% against the cohort median of 25.6. Counties that did not report, or that reported implausibly low totals, are excluded from this cohort rather than counted as low-crime.
2020–2024 direction
The reported violent-crime rate ended the window higher
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 35.4 per 100,000 in 2020 to 49.0 in 2024 (+38.5%). The highest observed value was 49.0 in 2024 and the lowest 24.5 in 2022. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property-offense composition
Burglary and vehicle theft carry more of the property total than they do across the cohort
Larceny-theft is 43.7% of reported property offenses in Whitley County, against a cohort median of 55.6%. The remainder is burglary (41) and motor vehicle theft (17). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Mid-size county rows still aggregate voluntary UCR submissions. Per-100,000 rates need a matched 2020 Census population; unmatched stay count-only. County-wide totals rarely describe any single town inside the line.
Property Crime
103
Violent Crime
18
Data Year
2024
Crime Breakdown (2024) · property-led · mid-size county
Category
Count
Property Crime
103
Burglary
41
Larceny-Theft
45
Motor Vehicle Theft
17
Arson
1
Violent Crime
18
Murder
1
Rape
2
Robbery
3
Aggravated Assault
12
Reporting Agency
Whitley County Sheriff's Office NIBRS-participating
Whitley County's crime figures on this page originate from Whitley County Sheriff's Office's submission to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Program.
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the crime rate in Whitley County, KY?▼
In 2024, Whitley County reported 18 violent crimes and 103 property crimes. The most common violent crime was aggravated assault, and the most common property crime was larceny-theft.
Is Whitley County safe?▼
Whitley County reported 121 total crimes in 2024.Property crime accounts for the majority of offenses. Compare with other counties in Kentucky on our state page for context.
Similar-Size Counties in Kentucky
A per-capita rate is easiest to read against places of similar scale, so these are the Kentucky counties closest to Whitley County in population. Their populations run from 35,942 to 37,103, against 36,712 here. Or launch the
side-by-side compare tool
to benchmark two jurisdictions directly.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, Crime in the United States (CIUS) Table 10.
FBI Table 10 supplies county offense counts but no resident population. Where this page shows a per-100,000 rate, the denominator is a separately matched 2020 U.S. Census Bureau county population; unmatched county rows remain count-only. Statewide comparisons draw on the state UCR program. Verify with FBI.gov UCR and Census.gov QuickFacts.