Lawton remains one of the most crime-ridden areas of Oklahoma, according to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation’s 2018 Crime in Oklahoma Report.
Lawton Police responded to 4,199 crime reports in 2018, including 7 murders, 90 reports of rape, 122 robberies, 621 counts of felonious assault, 1,023 counts of breaking and entering, 2,011 reports of larceny, 304 motor vehicle thefts and 21 reports of arson. That resulted in a crime rate of 45.08 per 1,000 people (based on a 2018 population of 93,140). Comanche County as a whole, experienced a crime rate in 2018 of 38.64 with a population of 120,561.
Only Oklahoma, Pottawatomie, and Pittsburg counties had higher rates of crime in 2018 than Comanche County, all three of which were lower than Lawton’s. The Oklahoma City Police Department represents more than 650,000 residents and reported a crime rate of 48.95 in 2018. Del City Police Department was one of the highest in the state at 56.45 crimes per 1,000 residents. Oklahoma County as a whole, with 921,819 residents, reported a crime rate of 42.81. Edmond Police Department, serving just over 93,000 residents, recorded a crime rate that was less than one-third that of Lawton.
In comparison, Cleveland County, including Norman, Moore, the University of Oklahoma, and Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office, reported 28.81 crimes per 1,000 residents in 2018. Norman led the county with 31.27 crimes per 1,000 residents, with Moore as 22.77. Norman had 124,577 people and Moore had 62,453 people respectively.
Lawton ranked third in the state for instances of reported rape, with over 96 reports per 100,000 residents. Only Stillwater (99.1 per 100,000 residents) and Tulsa (104.7 per 100,000 residents) had higher reported rates.
The homicide rate for Oklahoma County was 6.51 per 100,000 residents in 2018, compared to a rate of 7.52 in Lawton proper. Oklahoma City saw a rate of 7.96 per 100,000 residents in 2018.
Homicide Rate in Oklahoma 2017 8.5 per 100,000 people, up from 6.5 per 100,000 people in 2014 according to the CDC. Oklahoma ranked in the top 12 for highest homicide rates in the country from 2014 to 2017. Although CDC information is not yet published, according to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation homicides were down 14.6% in 2018 compared to 2017. The homicide rate in Oklahoma peaked in 1982 at over 10 per 100,000 residents (with the exception of 1995, in which the rate spiked to over 12 due to the tragic death of 162 Oklahomans in the bombing of the Murrah building).