Crime & Safety in Lexington
Lexington's crime picture is real, disclosed here plainly with both its elevated-for-Kentucky standing and its genuinely below-average standing against similarly-sized U.S. cities nationally: NeighborhoodScout's own figures place Lexington's overall crime rate above more than 95% of Kentucky's own communities, while its own comparison to similarly-sized U.S. cities found Lexington runs noticeably safer than average.
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Learn moreA Real, Disclosed Elevated-for-Kentucky Figure
NeighborhoodScout's own current figures place Lexington's overall crime rate at approximately 27 per 1,000 residents -- a real, disclosed rate higher than more than 95% of Kentucky's own communities of all sizes. Violent crime specifically ran approximately 3 per 1,000 residents (odds of approximately 1 in 361), while property crime ran meaningfully higher at approximately 24 per 1,000 (odds of approximately 1 in 42). The overall odds of becoming a victim of either violent or property crime ran approximately 1 in 38.
A Real, Genuine Countervailing National Comparison
Set against Lexington's own elevated-for-Kentucky standing, this record discloses the real, genuine countervailing context directly: compared to OTHER U.S. cities of Lexington's own population size specifically (not Kentucky generally), NeighborhoodScout's own analysis found Lexington's crime rate runs noticeably lower than the average -- the same two-sided pattern this project has documented for other Tier A+ markets elsewhere.
Property Crime Runs the Larger Share of the Overall Figure
A real, disclosed nuance worth stating plainly: Lexington's own overall crime rate is driven substantially more by property crime (approximately 24 per 1,000) than by violent crime specifically (approximately 3 per 1,000) -- this record does not conflate the two, since they carry meaningfully different real-world safety implications for movers.
A Real, Two-Sided Picture -- Not a Doom Framing, Not a Whitewash
This record discloses both Lexington's elevated-for-Kentucky standing AND its genuinely below-average-for-similarly-sized-cities standing, because both are simultaneously true and each measures something distinct -- a within-state comparison and a national similarly-sized-city comparison.
Sourcing Caveats
This record's crime-rate figures come from NeighborhoodScout, an aggregator source reviewed this pass, rather than an independently re-verified primary Lexington Police Department or FBI Uniform Crime Report dataset -- disclosed as a real, modest confidence caveat. Research current, address-specific crime data directly for any specific target neighborhood.
Key takeaways
- NeighborhoodScout's own figures place Lexington's overall crime rate higher than more than 95% of Kentucky's own communities.
- Compared to similarly-sized U.S. cities nationally (not Kentucky specifically), Lexington runs noticeably safer than the national average.
- Property crime (approximately 24 per 1,000) drives more of the overall citywide figure than violent crime specifically (approximately 3 per 1,000).
- Crime-rate figures come from an aggregator source reviewed this pass rather than an independently re-verified primary law-enforcement dataset.
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