By ANNA KAMINSKI
Kansas Reflector
TOPEKA — Kansas’ crime rate in 2024 reached its lowest mark in at least 20 years, according to recently released data, and some attribute the drop to law enforcement success.
Violent crimes saw a five-year low in 2024, and property crimes maintained a downward trend, per the Kansas Bureau of Investigation’s annual crime index report.
“We believe the collaborative efforts of law enforcement agencies throughout Kansas have an impact on bringing down crime, as does the public’s cooperation and assistance when major crimes are committed,” said KBI director Tony Mattivi.
The report has been published in some form at the KBI since 2003. It compiles data from local and state law enforcement agencies, creating a snapshot of the year’s crimes while reflecting greater trends when compared to past years.
A crime index rate is the number of recorded crimes per 1,000 people in a given year. Kansas’ rate decreased from 27 crimes per 1,000 people in 2023 to 23.3 in 2024. The report said it’s the lowest rate in more than 20 years.
“When assessing crime on a statewide basis, it is difficult to understand what drives crime from year to year because so many factors influence crime trends,” Mattivi said.
The state’s murder rate, for instance, fell below the 10-year average. With 117 murders in 2024, it marked a more than 25% decrease from 2023.
“Finding a common circumstance for these murders is difficult,” the report said, “as 46.2% of the reports indicated ‘unknown circumstance.’ ”
Murders in 2024 involved arguments, domestic violence and unknown suspects. Making up smaller fractions were illegal drug transactions, which totaled 2.6% of murders, and gang activity and drive-by incidents, which made up less than 1% of murders in 2024.
All crime categories decreased in 2024. Some numbers were fractions of pre-pandemic averages and others made history. Around 7,100 burglaries were reported in Kansas in 2024, the lowest number since 1966, when around 10,700 burglaries were reported, according to the report.
Wyandotte County had the highest reported crime index rate in the state, with nearly 47 crimes per 1,000 people. Sedgwick County was a close second with a rate of nearly 44. The lowest reported crime index rate in 2024 was 0.7 in Jewell County, though the county sheriff’s office only reported seven months out of the year.
The number of law enforcement officers employed in Kansas is inching closer to its pre-pandemic level of 3.84 officers per 1,000 people, according to data from the FBI. The number of employed law enforcement officers rose between 2023 and 2024 from 3.44 to 3.69.
Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach took credit for the decrease in crime rates, attributing it to his “law and order approach.”
“Kansans are less likely to be the victim of a crime today than at any time in the past 20 years,” Kobach said in a news release, which referred to him as Kansas’s chief law enforcement officer.
While crime has decreased nationally in the past three decades, Americans still worry just as much — if not more — about their safety and the presence of crime, according to Gallup polling.
Around half of Americans who participated in 2024 surveys worry about crime a great deal, and few are satisfied with policies addressing crime. Americans perceive that crime is growing in the areas where they live. Almost half of Americans polled in 2024 thought crime increased over the previous year, when crime nationwide has been on a steep downward trend since the 1990s.