Crime in Lawrence, Kansas
Major crime in Lawrence is 26% above the U.S. rate per resident: 18% higher for persons crimes and 27% higher for property crimes. Expected major crimes are down 6.9% from a year earlier.
Modeled estimates per resident, not counts of incidents. How we calculated this
Index: crimes per resident compared with the U.S., where 100 is the U.S. rate and 200 is twice it.
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Rape / sexual assault and other larceny stand out most, at about 1.9 times the U.S. rate
Expected crimes per year in Lawrence for each type, and the index against the U.S. rate per resident.
Citywide indexWhere the middle half of residents live
Property crimes
Social disorder
How crime varies across Lawrence
The middle half of Lawrence residents live in neighborhoods with a major-crime index between 55 and 165; the typical (median) resident's is 102. The citywide figure (126) is higher than that because crime concentrates in a smaller set of areas.
- 0–5018.5%
- 50–10029.7%
- 100–20035.2%
- 200–40015.0%
- 400+1.6%
Share of residents by the index of their census block group, a neighborhood of roughly 600 to 3,000 people.
Highest in the daytime
Major-crime index by time of week, against the U.S. rate for the same hours.
Major crime fell 6.9% in a year; across Kansas it fell 12.4%
Change in expected crimes, with Kansas as a whole in gray. The past year uses the reporting agencies' year-to-date FBI data; 2031 is the model's projection.
Lawrence against U.S. places with 50,000 to 100,000 residents
149 of the 540 other places of this size have a higher major-crime index than Lawrence; the middle of the group is 92. The 9 nearest in population:
Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; residents in gray.
Lawrence has a higher major-crime index than 6 of its 8 nearest neighbors
The 8 nearest cities and towns we cover, by major-crime index. The closest, Eudora (9 mi), is 79% below Lawrence's rate.
Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; distances between where residents live, in miles.
Questions about crime in Lawrence
What are the most common crimes in Lawrence?
By expected count, the most common persons and property crimes are other larceny (about 881 a year), shoplifting (about 392 a year) and aggravated assault (about 270 a year). Compared with the U.S., rape / sexual assault stands out most: 1.9 times the U.S. rate per resident.
How we calculated this
Each police agency's crimes, as reported to the FBI, are spread across the census block groups it serves using population, jobs, points of interest and, where available, local incident records. Lawrence's figures add up its 58 block groups. The index compares crimes per resident with the U.S. rate.
- Lawrence's published incident records inform the estimate for every neighborhood.
- 54.9% of residents live in block groups whose estimate has high confidence (80% interval within about 5x).
- Rates are per resident, so places where many people work or visit but few live, such as downtowns, airports and stadiums, can read high.
- Disorderly conduct and trespassing are modeled, because the FBI records them only through arrests.
- Residents: 96,715. Model updated Oct 20, 2026. Release 2026-2026-10-20-2
Full method and validation·Data sources
CrimeMetric. "Crime in Lawrence, Kansas." Vorp Labs, model updated Oct 20, 2026. https://crimemetric.com/ks/lawrence
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Major-crime index, U.S. = 100
- Eudora9 mi26
- Tonganoxie14 mi24
- De Soto16 mi60
- Gardner21 mi57
- Bonner Springs22 mi158
- Topeka24 mi221
- Ottawa24 mi73
- Edwardsville25 mi94