Photo: JERRYE AND ROY KLOTZ MD · CC BY-SA 3.0Sweet Springs sees more violent crime per resident than 86% of U.S. towns
Taking everything together, Sweet Springs scores C: more crime per resident than 67% of U.S. towns, measured on crimes its police reported between 2023 and 2025. The yearly rates were 4.6 violent crimes and 8.4 incidents of property crime per 1,000 residents, set against 5.8 and 26.2 in the rest of Missouri.
Crimes reported to the FBI per 1,000 residents a year, 2023–2025. “Rest of MO” is every other Missouri city and town in the FBI’s tables; the U.S. figure is the FBI’s national estimate as published, averaged over the three years. The FBI publishes no national homicide or robbery rate in our data, so those compare with all U.S. cities and towns in its tables.
What’s behind Sweet Springs’ grade
Property crimes plus four times violent crimes reported to the FBI per resident, 2023–2025, on a national curve. Property crime holds Sweet Springs’ grade up; violent crime pulls it down.
Violent crime, by year and by type
Show as a table
| Year | Sweet Springs | Rest of Missouri | U.S. (FBI national estimate) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 3.1 | 5.9 | 3.9 |
| 2024 | 3.8 | 6.0 | 3.6 |
| 2025 | 6.8 | 5.4 | 3.3 |
Violent crimes per 1,000 residents
By type 2023–2025, counts
Sweet Springs’ police reported 18 violent crimes to the FBI over 2023–2025, about 4.6 per 1,000 residents a year, against 5.8 in the rest of Missouri and the FBI’s national estimate of 3.6.
Crime in Sweet Springs per 1,000 residents
Violent crime per 1,000 residents, 2025
Property crime per 1,000 residents, 2025
Crimes reported to police in 2025 per resident; one person can be the victim of more than one, and some reports involve visitors.
And about 7 violent crimes, in 2025. Below are 1,000 dots, one per resident; each colored dot is one reported crime.
Reported crime is steady
Show as a table
| Year | Sweet Springs property | Rest of Missouri property | Sweet Springs violent | Rest of Missouri violent |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 9.4 | 28.8 | 3.1 | 5.9 |
| 2024 | 6.1 | 27.0 | 3.8 | 6.0 |
| 2025 | 9.8 | 22.9 | 6.8 | 5.4 |
Crimes per 1,000 residents
Reported crime per resident was steady from 2023 to 2025: the change is within ordinary year-to-year swings. Per 1,000 residents, 2023–2025, against the rest of Missouri.
22 crimes reported in 2025
2025 offenses reported
Offenses reported to police, not convictions. FBI Uniform Crime Reporting. The last row is counted outside the property total.
9 violent and 13 property, as reported to the FBI by Sweet Springs’ police.
No one died in a crash on Sweet Springs’s roads in 2019–2023
That is about what is typical for Missouri towns of 2,500–5,000 people: at their median rate (7.2 deaths per 100,000 residents a year), a town of Sweet Springs’s size would see about 0 in five years. With numbers this small, a death or two either way changes the picture, so Sweet Springs’s own rate (0.0) is context, not a ranking.
Deaths are counted where the crash happened, not where the people lived: a highway through town adds through-traffic deaths, and residents’ own risk on roads elsewhere isn’t here. Town rates sit below state and U.S. rates because a third of fatal crashes happen outside any town. Road safety is described here and is not part of the Safety Grade. Source: NHTSA Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), 2019–2023.
Sweet Springs and its neighbors
| Town | Grade | Violent | Property |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sweet Springs | C | 4.6 | 8.4 |
Crimes reported to the FBI per 1,000 residents a year, 2023–2025.
Missouri towns of a similar size
| Town | Grade | Violent | Property |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sweet Springs | C | 4.6 | 8.4 |
| Reeds Spring | A+ | 0.0 | 0.3 |
| Advance | B | 1.8 | 8.0 |
| Mansfield | C+ | 3.8 | 7.6 |
| Steelville | C− | 1.4 | 32.7 |
| Claycomo | D | 6.3 | 36.1 |
The five graded Missouri towns closest to Sweet Springs’ population (1,323), by grade.
How reported crime compares across the town line. Tap a town to see its safety page.
What this data can and can’t tell you
- It’s reported crime. Only incidents reported to and recorded by police appear here. Many crimes are never reported to police.
- One number for all of Sweet Springs. A town-wide rate doesn’t show where incidents happen, and that can differ a lot from one part of town to another.
- Visitors count too. Incidents involving people who work, shop or visit are counted against Sweet Springs’ residents, which raises the per-resident rate.
- Whose population. Rates use the FBI’s population for the department (1,333 in 2025); our figure for Sweet Springs is 1,323 (2025 Census estimate).
- Gaps are real gaps. A missing year means the department didn’t report a full year, not that nothing happened.
How the grade is calculated, for every town: How TownRatings grades safety →
Questions about safety in Sweet Springs
Is Sweet Springs, MO safe?
On crimes reported to the FBI in 2023–2025, Sweet Springs reports more crime per resident than 67% of U.S. towns, a C Safety Grade. Its police reported 4.6 violent crimes per 1,000 residents a year, against 5.8 in the rest of Missouri and the FBI’s national estimate of 3.6.
What is the crime rate in Sweet Springs?
4.6 violent and 8.4 property crimes per 1,000 residents a year, 2023–2025, as reported to the FBI. The rest of Missouri reports 5.8 and 26.2; the FBI’s national estimate is 3.6 and 17.6.
Who polices Sweet Springs?
Sweet Springs’s own police department, which reports to the FBI as “Sweet Springs”. Its figures are the ones on this page.
Heads-up board
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Please don’t name or describe individuals. In an emergency, call 911.
Neighbors looking out for each other in Sweet Springs.
Crime: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program, Crime Data Explorer: offenses known to law enforcement by city, 2025, and state and national rates. Counts are crimes reported to police, not convictions. The Safety Grade is our own summary of that data, not an official rating. Road deaths: NHTSA Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), 2019–2023. This isn’t an official statement of public safety. In an emergency, call 911.