South Carolina Crime Rates: Safest & Most Dangerous Cities
Crime data for 149 cities and 45 counties in South Carolina (SC), ranked from safest to most dangerous. Data from 552 law enforcement agencies.
FBI UCR Data Snapshot: South Carolina
South Carolina (SC) reported 24,069 violent crimes and 108,928 property crimes in 2024, based on FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program submissions from 552 law enforcement agencies. That translates to a statewide violent crime rate of 7 per 100,000 residents and a property crime rate of 31.7 per 100,000 against a reporting population of 343,551,384. The PlainCrime dataset indexes 149 South Carolina cities and 45 counties, each with their own detail pages and local crime figures drawn from FBI UCR Tables 8 and 10.
Within the statewide violent crime total, aggravated assault accounted for 0 incidents, robbery 0, murder and non-negligent manslaughter 0, and rape 0. Property crime splits across larceny-theft (0), burglary (0), motor vehicle theft (0), and arson (0).
Across 11 years of state-level UCR history (2014–2024), the violent crime rate moved from 7.4 to 7 per 100,000 — a decline of 5.4%. City-level detail pages within South Carolina include safety grades (A+ to F), benchmarks against national averages, per-capita risk estimates, and multi-year trend tables for users comparing specific jurisdictions. All figures above are drawn from FBI UCR 2024 submissions; reporting completeness varies by agency, and the FBI periodically restates prior-year figures as late submissions arrive.
Safest Cities
Top 50 by lowest violent crime rate
Most Dangerous Cities
Top 50 by highest violent crime rate
Crime Trends
Multi-year charts & analysis
Crime Trends
| Year | Population | Violent Crime | Rate | Property Crime | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 343,551,384 | 24,069 | 7 | 108,928 | 31.7 |
| 2023 | 338,357,687 | 25,624 | 7.6 | 120,486 | 35.6 |
| 2022 | 336,746,447 | 26,333 | 7.8 | 124,144 | 36.9 |
| 2021 | 335,395,039 | 26,636 | 7.9 | 130,274 | 38.8 |
| 2020 | 332,726,731 | 27,371 | 8.2 | 140,993 | 42.4 |
| 2019 | 331,433,049 | 25,850 | 7.8 | 148,813 | 44.9 |
| 2018 | 330,362,587 | 25,087 | 7.6 | 154,219 | 46.7 |
| 2017 | 329,056,355 | 25,150 | 7.6 | 159,010 | 48.3 |
| 2016 | 323,127,513 | 24,974 | 7.7 | 161,187 | 49.9 |
| 2015 | 321,418,820 | 24,025 | 7.5 | 161,063 | 50.1 |
| 2014 | 318,857,056 | 23,740 | 7.4 | 166,526 | 52.2 |
Cities in South Carolina
Counties in South Carolina
Nearby States
Compare South Carolina with neighboring states, or use the compare tool for side-by-side jurisdiction benchmarking.
Explore More Data
Primary source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, Crime in the United States annual release. State-level trends cross-check against the FBI Crime Data Explorer (CDE) API.
Population figures for rate calculations reference U.S. Census Bureau estimates where FBI-reported populations are unavailable. Verify with Census.gov QuickFacts.
Read our methodology — how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.
Using PlainCrime rankings responsibly
Crime rankings are most useful when they sit alongside other community-quality signals — school performance, housing affordability, employment, and access to healthcare. A safer-than-average violent-crime rate in a small commuter suburb does not by itself make a city a better place to live; it is one data point among many. Likewise, a higher-than-average rate in a dense urban center may reflect that residents and visitors interact with police more often, not that the city is necessarily unsafe for its residents. We provide cross-links from each city profile to neighboring jurisdictions, state averages, and national benchmarks so you can read each number in context rather than in isolation.
For news outlets, researchers, and concerned residents who cite our rankings, the most defensible approach is to quote the per-100,000 rate, the reporting year, and the source agency in the same sentence. Avoid framing crime statistics as predictive — UCR data describes what was reported in a past year, not what will happen tomorrow. Where possible, pair our rankings with longitudinal trend data on the relevant city's profile page to show whether the rate is moving up, holding steady, or falling year over year.