Crime & Safety in Johnson City
Johnson City's crime data shows a real, sharp disagreement between its two most-cited sources: NeighborhoodScout frames the city's crime rate as higher than 92% of Tennessee communities, while CrimeGrade assigns an overall B grade and describes the rate as 37% below the national average. Both are disclosed here rather than resolved into one verdict.
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Learn moreNeighborhoodScout's read: a high rate, well above most Tennessee communities
NeighborhoodScout cites an overall crime rate of 28 per 1,000 residents -- framed as "one of the highest crime rates in America compared to all communities of all sizes" -- with a 1-in-36 chance of victimization (violent or property crime combined) in a given year, and states more than 92% of Tennessee communities have a lower crime rate than Johnson City.
CrimeGrade's read: a milder violent-crime figure, but an internally tension-filled overall grade
CrimeGrade cites a violent crime rate of 5.483 per 1,000 residents and an annual cost-of-crime of $323 per resident ($65 above the national average) -- yet separately assigns an overall "B" safety grade and describes the city's overall crime rate as "37% below the national average." This B-grade, below-average overall framing sits in real, disclosed tension with the same source's own above-national-average cost-of-crime figure, and more sharply with NeighborhoodScout's "higher than 92% of Tennessee" framing.
The disagreement likely reflects different baselines and weighting, not a raw-data error
This kind of cross-source divergence -- a similarly-scaled per-1,000 statistic read very differently by two data providers -- likely reflects different national/state comparison baselines and different weighting between violent and property crime, similar in spirit to crime-data disagreements documented for other markets in this dataset (see e.g. Marietta, GA). The practical upshot is the same regardless of the underlying cause: don't rely on either single source's framing as a final answer.
Check a specific address directly, and expect real block-level variance
As with any city, block-level and neighborhood-level variance is real and can be masked by any citywide statistic from either source. Per site policy, no specific lower-rated area is named here -- check a specific address directly with both NeighborhoodScout and CrimeGrade.org before drawing a conclusion.
Key takeaways
- NeighborhoodScout cites an overall crime rate of 28 per 1,000 (higher than 92% of Tennessee communities, 1-in-36 victimization odds).
- CrimeGrade cites a violent crime rate of 5.483 per 1,000 and an above-national-average cost of crime ($323/resident) -- yet assigns an overall B grade and describes the rate as 37% below the national average, a real internal tension disclosed rather than resolved.
- The two sources diverge sharply in framing despite comparable-scale raw statistics -- likely reflecting different comparison baselines and crime-type weighting, not a raw-data conflict.
- Check a specific address directly with both sources before drawing a conclusion; no specific lower-rated area is named here per site policy.
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