Safest Counties in Mississippi: 10 Ranked (2026)
The 10 Mississippi counties where police report enough to the FBI to build a reliable rate, ranked by violent crime, with home prices, asking rents and incomes where available.
Mississippi has 82 counties. Ten of them clear the reporting bar this page uses, and the gap between the quietest, Rankin at 63 violent offenses per 100,000, and the busiest, Hinds at 421, is 6.7 to one. What homes closed at over the last 12 months sits beside the rate where Resideline has enough sales to publish a median: 13,322 closing records tracked in the 8 counties that clear that bar.
The crime rates here are built from the 1,182,754 residents those police agencies actually report on, over the months they reported. Each figure is a single county-wide figure, so treat this as a way to narrow a search rather than a verdict on any street.
We do not treat missing or conflicting crime data as zero. A county appears here only when its reporting clears our reliability threshold, and we set aside results that conflict materially with the state's own records. Whether a county is ranked depends on its crime reporting alone; whether it shows a price depends on whether Resideline tracked enough closings there.
The ranking
| # | County | Violent per 100k | Property per 100k | Median closed price | Median asking rent | Median income |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rankin | 63 | 451 | $289,350 | $1,800 | $84,139 |
| 2 | Lamar | 75 | 653 | $289,000 | $1,300 | $79,568 |
| 3 | Pearl River | 124 | 686 | $244,900 | $1,300 | $56,958 |
| 4 | DeSoto | 168 | 1,057 | $326,567 | $1,890 | $85,117 |
| 5 | Forrest | 194 | 2,699 | $224,900 | $1,100 | $49,352 |
| 6 | Lowndes | 270 | 1,047 | n/a | n/a | $56,293 |
| 7 | Jones | 296 | 1,810 | $185,000 | n/a | $53,046 |
| 8 | Lauderdale | 308 | 959 | n/a | n/a | $56,828 |
| 9 | Harrison | 384 | 2,499 | $263,832 | $1,600 | $63,362 |
| 10 | Hinds | 421 | 1,898 | $194,000 | $1,295 | $51,926 |
A closer look at each county
1. Rankin County
Rankin's violent crime rate is 63 per 100,000 residents, the lowest quarter among the Mississippi counties Resideline can measure. That is below the median comparable US county, which records 245. Buyers there paid a median of $289,350, some 114 percent of the level across the counties measured. Both its crime rate and its price sit at the ends of this list, in the directions people expect them to. The ratio of price to local household income is 3.4, among the gentlest on this list. At $1,800 a month in asking rent, the gross return here is in the top quarter of the counties measured. Resideline publishes a separate page for Brandon, the market with the most tracked closings in this county's ZIP codes.
2. Lamar County
Lamar records 75 violent offenses per 100,000 residents, which places it in the lowest quarter of the Mississippi counties measured here. That is below the median comparable US county, which records 245. The median home closed at $289,000, roughly 114 percent of the middle figure for these counties. Households there earn a median of $79,568, about 140 percent of the median for these counties. Property crime is low too, at 653 per 100,000, the bottom quarter of this list and 0.5 times the median comparable US county. The median rental listing asks $1,300 a month. For prices at street level, see Hattiesburg, the market with the most tracked closings in this county's ZIP codes.
3. Pearl River County
Pearl River's violent crime rate is 124 per 100,000 residents, the lowest quarter among the Mississippi counties Resideline can measure. The median comparable US county records 245, so it is quieter than most of the country too. At $244,900, its median closed price is unremarkable against the rest of this list. Against what households there earn, a home costs 4.3 times median income, in the top quarter of this list. Its property rate is also among the lowest here, 686 per 100,000, or 0.6 times the median comparable US county. Asking rents run about $1,300 a month.
4. DeSoto County
DeSoto records 168 violent offenses per 100,000 residents, which places it in the middle range of the Mississippi counties measured here. The median comparable US county records 245, so it is quieter than most of the country too. A median closing price of $326,567 puts it at roughly 128 percent of the middle figure for this list. Households there earn a median of $85,117, about 150 percent of the median for these counties. Property offenses run at 1,057 per 100,000, in the middle of this list. Asking rents run about $1,890 a month. Resideline publishes a separate page for Olive Branch, the market with the most tracked closings in this county's ZIP codes.
5. Forrest County
Police in Forrest reported 194 violent offenses per 100,000 people, putting it in the middle range of this list. The median comparable US county records 245, so it is quieter than most of the country too. At $224,900, its median closed price is unremarkable against the rest of this list. The gap between local wages and local prices is wide: 4.6 times household income, in the top quarter of these counties. Theft and burglary are the larger problem: 2,699 property offenses per 100,000, 2.3 times the median comparable US county. Asking rents run about $1,100 a month. For prices at street level, see Petal, the market with the most tracked closings in this county's ZIP codes.
6. Lowndes County
Lowndes's violent crime rate is 270 per 100,000 residents, the middle range among the Mississippi counties Resideline can measure. That is close to the median comparable US county, which records 245. Its property rate, 1,047 per 100,000, sits in the middle of these counties.
7. Jones County
At 296 violent offenses per 100,000, Jones sits in the middle range of the places on this list. That is 1.2 times the median comparable US county, which records 245, and above the Mississippi statewide rate of 253 per 100,000 in the same data. Homes there closed at a median of $185,000, about 73 percent of the median across this list. A typical home costs 3.5 years of the median household's income, the low end of this list. Its property rate, 1,810 per 100,000, sits in the middle of these counties.
8. Lauderdale County
Lauderdale's violent crime rate is 308 per 100,000 residents, the middle range among the Mississippi counties Resideline can measure. That is 1.3 times the median comparable US county, which records 245, and above the Mississippi statewide rate of 253 per 100,000 in the same data. Property offenses run at 959 per 100,000, in the middle of this list.
9. Harrison County
Harrison records 384 violent offenses per 100,000 residents, which places it in the highest quarter of the Mississippi counties measured here. That is 1.6 times the median comparable US county, which records 245, and above the Mississippi statewide rate of 253 per 100,000 in the same data. The median closed price, $263,832, sits near the center of the counties measured. Property crime is the higher of its two figures at 2,499 per 100,000, the top quarter of this list and 2.1 times the median comparable US county. The median rental listing asks $1,600 a month. Resideline publishes a separate page for Gulfport, the market with the most tracked closings in this county's ZIP codes.
10. Hinds County
Police in Hinds reported 421 violent offenses per 100,000 people, putting it in the highest quarter of this list. That is 1.7 times the median comparable US county, which records 245, and above the Mississippi statewide rate of 253 per 100,000 in the same data. Homes changed hands at a median $194,000, around 76 percent of what the rest of this list recorded. At $1,295 a month in asking rent, the gross return here is in the top quarter of the counties measured. Property offenses run at 1,898 per 100,000, in the middle of this list. For prices at street level, see Jackson, the market with the most tracked closings in this county's ZIP codes.
Where safety and affordability overlap in Mississippi
Two of the 3 safest counties on this list also cost no more than the list's median once prices are set against local incomes: Rankin (63 violent per 100,000, a home at 3.4 times median household income); Lamar (75 violent per 100,000, a home at 3.6 times median household income). Against what households there earn, those are the counties where a low crime rate is not being charged for.
How to read this list
The right way to use this is to narrow the list, then check the address. Averages at this scale hide the variation that actually matters once you are choosing between two houses.
Prices and rents are as of September 9, 2026, from closings and rental listings Resideline tracks over the previous 12 months; a price is shown where at least 100 closings were tracked and a rent where at least 50 listings were. Rent figures are the median asking rent on listings, not lease figures. Crime is the 2025 FBI Crime Data Explorer release, measured for the whole county over the months each agency reported, and violent crime means murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault. Household income is the Census SAIPE 2024 estimate of the county's median household income; population is the Census 2024 estimate. Where this page compares a rate with the median comparable US county, that figure (245 violent and 1188 property offenses per 100,000) is the median across the 874 US counties with at least 50,000 residents whose agencies reported on 90 percent or more of them for the year.
Sources and related pages
- •Crime: FBI Crime Data Explorer, agency-level offense counts for 2025, aggregated by county over the months each agency reported.
- •Income: Census SAIPE 2024, county median household income.
- •Population: Census county population estimates, vintage 2024.
- •Prices and rents: Resideline's tracked closings and rental listings, 12 months to September 2026.
- •Related: Safest counties by state; Does crime actually lower home prices?; Mississippi housing market.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the safest county in Mississippi?
Of the 10 Mississippi counties measured here, Rankin County records the lowest violent crime rate at 63 offenses per 100,000 residents, against 245 for the median comparable US county. Homes there closed at a median of $289,350 over the last 12 months.
Is this every county in Mississippi?
No. It covers 10 of the state's 82 counties, the ones where police agencies report at least 90 percent of the population to the FBI, the area has at least 50,000 residents, and the resulting rate falls inside the sanity bounds we apply. Whether Resideline has enough sales there decides only whether a price is shown. No place above 150,000 residents was excluded.
Is this crime rate for my neighborhood?
No. The FBI publishes these figures for whole counties, so every part of a county carries the same number here, from its densest district to its farmland. It is useful for narrowing a search and not a substitute for looking at a specific address.
Are these rents asking rents or lease rents?
They are the median asking rent on rental listings in the county over the last 12 months. That is what landlords advertised, a guide to the market rather than a lease figure.
About the author
Jeffrey Batista
Jeffrey Batista is the founder of Resideline, a real estate technology company building institutional grade valuation and investment analysis tools for real estate investors.
A software engineer with more than 10 years of experience, Jeffrey has worked across full stack development, infrastructure, data engineering, machine learning, and large scale systems. He left his engineering career to build Resideline full time.
Jeffrey is also a real estate investor with nearly a decade of hands on experience buying, renovating, managing, and analyzing residential properties. His experience on both sides of the industry, as an engineer and an investor, led him to build Resideline after seeing how fragmented and outdated many of the tools available to individual investors were.
Today, he leads the development of Resideline's proprietary data infrastructure, automated valuation models, rental analytics, and investment underwriting technology.