Safest Cities in South Dakota

FBI UCR Safest-Cities Snapshot: South Dakota

South Dakota's 13 safest cities for 2024 rank from Brandon (violent crime rate 73.2/100K) at the top of the list to Rapid City (violent crime rate 718.9/100K) at the bottom of this top-13 selection. Rankings are drawn directly from FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program submissions and include only cities with reporting populations of 10,000 or more residents, which keeps per-capita rate calculations statistically stable. The average violent crime rate across these 13 cities is 315.7 per 100,000 residents, well below the US national benchmark commonly cited in the 350–400 range.

At the top of the list, Brandon recorded 8 violent crimes and 41 property crimes against a reporting population of 10,935 in 2024. That works out to a property crime rate of 374.9 per 100,000 residents alongside the 73.2/100K violent rate, both well below typical US municipal benchmarks. The top five safest South Dakota cities on this list are Brandon, Brookings, Vermillion, Mitchell, Spearfish, each submitting Part I offense counts to the FBI UCR Program for 2024.

Violent crime rate is used as the primary ranking metric because the four Part I violent offenses (murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault) have higher reporting consistency than property offenses, which vary with local policing priorities and insurance-driven reporting. South Dakota cities that missed this list either fell below the 10,000-population threshold, had incomplete 2024 UCR submissions, or were consolidated into county agency totals rather than reporting individually. For context on how the FBI collects and publishes these statistics, consult the UCR Program documentation; agency participation is voluntary and coverage can shift from year to year.

A safest-cities list is only as useful as the data behind it, so a few cautions are worth keeping in mind. The ranking rewards a low violent crime rate per 100,000 residents, the measure most consistent across places of different sizes; property crime is weighted more lightly because it tracks opportunity and reporting habits as much as genuine risk. Small communities can reach the top on the strength of a single quiet year, and a town that simply reports less thoroughly can look safer than one that documents every incident. Treat the order as a starting point for questions rather than a verdict, compare neighboring cities directly, and read the underlying counts before drawing conclusions about where it is genuinely safe to live.