Crime & Safety in Clearwater
Crime data sources disagree meaningfully on how safe Clearwater is relative to the national average -- CrimeGrade.org gives the city an overall B- grade (60th percentile for safety), while NeighborhoodScout describes Clearwater's crime rate as considerably higher than the national average and higher than 78% of Florida cities and towns. Both are legitimate, differently-methodologied sources, and the honest answer is that they don't agree, rather than picking one as authoritative.
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Learn moreCrimeGrade: A B- Overall Grade
CrimeGrade.org gives Clearwater an overall B- grade, describing the crime rate as slightly lower than the average U.S. city and ranking Clearwater in the 60th percentile for safety nationally. Broken down by category: violent crime also grades B- (56th percentile for safety, rate of 2.696 per 1,000 residents), while property crime grades lower at C- (37th percentile, rate of 15.38 per 1,000 residents) -- meaning CrimeGrade sees Clearwater as somewhat safer than average on violent crime specifically, but somewhat worse than average on property crime specifically.
NeighborhoodScout: A Notably Different Read
NeighborhoodScout describes Clearwater's overall crime rate as considerably higher than the national average, citing 20 crimes per 1,000 residents and a 1-in-49 chance of being a victim of violent or property crime in a given year. Relative to Florida specifically, NeighborhoodScout ranks Clearwater's crime rate higher than 78% of the state's cities and towns of all sizes -- a meaningfully worse relative ranking than CrimeGrade's B- grade would suggest.
Why the Disagreement, and How to Use This
CrimeGrade and NeighborhoodScout use different underlying data pulls, normalization methods, and comparison baselines, which is a known and common source of disagreement between the two platforms generally, not something unique to Clearwater. Rather than picking whichever grade sounds better, the practical takeaway is: violent crime specifically appears close to or somewhat below the national average per CrimeGrade's category breakdown, while overall and property-crime figures read worse in both CrimeGrade's C- property grade and NeighborhoodScout's broader assessment. Neither source's data is broken out by specific Clearwater neighborhood in what was reviewed here, so this page intentionally does not name or rank individual areas as higher- or lower-crime -- check current data for a specific address or neighborhood directly with these platforms before making a decision.
Key takeaways
- CrimeGrade.org: overall B- grade, 60th percentile for safety; violent crime B- (2.696/1,000), property crime C- (15.38/1,000, 37th percentile).
- NeighborhoodScout: describes Clearwater's crime rate as considerably higher than the national average (20 crimes/1,000; 1-in-49 victim odds), higher than 78% of Florida cities and towns.
- The two sources genuinely disagree on overall safety framing -- both are cited here rather than picking one as authoritative.
- Violent crime specifically reads closer to average per CrimeGrade's category breakdown; property crime reads worse across both sources.
- Neither source reviewed here was broken out by specific Clearwater neighborhood -- check current data for a specific address directly before deciding.
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