Is Knoxville safe in 2026? What KPD’s numbers actually mean for homeowners
The search is “is Knoxville safe,” “Knoxville crime 2026,” and “Knoxville burglary rate.” The honest answer is better than the national headline cycle, and it is not a reason to skip monitoring. The Knoxville Police Department’s preliminary 2025 priority crime report put murders at 17, down from 23 in 2024, the lowest total since 2016. Chief Paul Noel and Mayor Indya Kincannon both treated that drop as the city’s direction, not as a dare to leave the slider unlocked. Property crime was down about 7 percent. Burglaries were essentially flat: 643 versus 641. A flat burglary number is still hundreds of unsupervised hours that went badly for someone.
Home Security Systems Knoxville does not scare-sell those figures. We cite KPD and then sell the product: professionally installed sensors, optional cameras, ADT 24/7, cellular backup when KUB is dark. Call (865) 500-6003 with the ZIP. SafeStreets is the ADT Authorized Provider that installs. ADT monitors 24/7. A safer year is good news. It is not the watch.
What 2025 actually closed at
KPD’s year-end summary is unofficial until the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation audits it, and KPD said so. Treat the numbers as KPD’s preliminary count, not as a marketing brochure. Murder and manslaughter victims: 17 in 2025, 23 in 2024, below the 10-year average around 27. Non-fatal shooting victims dropped 27 percent, following a large drop in 2024. Robberies fell 27 percent, 114 versus 156. Motor vehicle thefts fell 22 percent. Theft from vehicles was down slightly. Aggravated assaults ticked up 2 percent, 816 versus 797. Simple assaults rose 11 percent, 2,320 versus 2,091. Burglary / breaking and entering: 643 versus 641.
Priority crimes overall were roughly flat. Persons crimes rose. Property crimes fell about 7 percent, 7,100 versus 7,612 on KPD’s property-crime total. That split is the whole “is Knoxville safe” argument in one paragraph. Violent headlines got better. Assaults did not. Burglary did not magically disappear. If you own a house, burglary and theft from a porch or a car are the categories that match a door sensor, a garage contact, and an optional doorbell. Homicide totals are not how we quote a Bearden two-story.
We will not pretend 17 murders means every ZIP is interchangeable. We also will not pretend 17 is a reason to panic-buy twelve cameras. Occupancy is still occupancy. Empty houses still sit.
Q1 2026 continued the drop — including a first-quarter with zero murders
KPD’s first-quarter 2026 release (January 1 through March 31) said there were no murders in Knoxville, down from four in the same window of 2025. Over the previous five years the city averaged about five murders in the first three months. KPD said it is believed to be the first time since 1988 that Knoxville did not record a homicide in the first quarter. Non-fatal shootings were down 82 percent versus 2025’s first quarter. Robberies were down 19 percent.
Property crime kept moving too. KPD reported a 35 percent reduction in burglary / breaking and entering in that first quarter, a 64 percent reduction in reported car burglaries, and a 42 percent reduction in motor vehicle thefts. Chief Noel credited person-based and place-based work. Mayor Kincannon called the numbers evidence that prevention efforts were paying off. Those are their sentences. Ours is: a 35 percent burglary drop is still not a sensor on your slider.
This article is dated in 2026 so those closed 2025 figures and that first-quarter 2026 release can sit here honestly. We do not backdate them into a 2025 evergreen post and pretend the year had already closed.
What homeowners actually call about
Not homicide maps. Porch packages in Old City and Market Square. A leftover builder keypad in Farragut. A Fort Sanders cottage empty on a Volunteers Saturday. A Hardin Valley two-story empty toward Hardin Valley Academy. An Oak Ridge house empty on a DOE weekday. A KUB outage that killed a Wi-Fi camera. Those calls did not wait for a crime map to turn red. They waited for the house to sit empty.
House versus condo, ZIP, cameras yes or no, leftover keypad. That is the 865 intake. We do not need a heat map. We need openings. A downtown 37902 condo with one door is not a South Knoxville walk-out. A Sequoyah Hills ranch with six windows you open is not a Halls ranch with a garage. Architecture is not the quote. Occupancy is.
Promotional packages start at $53.99/mo* for ADT Secure+, then $63.99*, $74.99*. $99 install on many plans. Typically 36 months. Early termination fees apply. Credit approval applies. Offers are for homeowners. Crime being down does not change those numbers. Crime being down also does not make a leftover keypad live.
How to read the numbers without buying fear
Citywide figures mix downtown, Fort Sanders, Fountain City, east-side blocks, and west-side plats. A quieter street is not 24/7 monitoring. A neighbor on the porch is not an ADT operator. A year-over-year drop is not a lock. KPD’s own 2025 burglary count going from 641 to 643 is the sentence we want people to sit with. The murder drop is real and welcome. The burglary count did not take the year off.
Assaults rising while murders fall is also real. Domestic aggravated assaults were a larger share in KPD’s telling. That is a people problem more than a slider problem. We do not sell a keypad as a domestic-violence plan. We sell a keypad as a door plan. Keep the product in its lane or you will hate it for the wrong reason.
Vehicle theft and theft from vehicles still exist even when they fall. A garage walk-through contact is the boring add. A camera on Complete+ is the clip of a driveway. Neither replaces the other. Ask for the opening you actually have.
Downtown, Fort Sanders, and the west side are not one verdict
Old City and Market Square collect boxes and weekend foot traffic. That is a stoop problem plus a door problem. Porch packages is that article. Fort Sanders empties toward campus and toward Neyland. UT football empties is that article. Sequoyah Hills and Bearden empty toward jobs and schools and still have leftover panels. Farragut and Hardin Valley empty toward Pellissippi and still think the builder keypad is ADT. It is not.
Oak Ridge weekday empties are a DOE calendar. Maryville and Alcoa are different halls. We install in the TN – Knoxville window. We do not mill Gatlinburg. We do not tell you a west-side plat is “safe so skip it” or an east-side street is “unsafe so buy twelve cameras.” We tell you the house sits. Order the openings.
Nineteen Knoxville ZIPs plus the suburbs we actually schedule. Same-day or next-day when the calendar is open. The crime report does not change the dispatch desk. Knox 911 registration is still city paper. Farragut, Oak Ridge, and Maryville still confirm at their own offices.
Burglary is the category that matches this product
643 burglaries in 2025 is a citywide pile. Q1 2026’s 35 percent drop is a better pile. Both piles are made of houses and businesses that were entered. Residential openings are what SafeStreets puts contacts on. A professionally installed system cannot promise your address is not in next year’s count. It can promise that an armed door opening becomes a call from ADT instead of a surprise when you get home from Bearden High pickup.
People skip monitoring in a “down year” and then order after the one incident on their street. That is a human pattern, not a Knoxville-only pattern. The cheaper time to order is the week you move in, leftover keypad still on the wall, $99 install* still on the table, not the week after someone tried the slider. Photograph the leftover. Builder leftovers are not ADT.
Cellular backup is the other “down year” sentence. A better crime year does not stop trees from taking KUB lines. Vegetation still causes at least half of KUB outages. A Wi-Fi camera still dies with the router. Cellular backup is that article. Ask it on the quote even if you called because of a news story.
Permits and false alarms are not a crime score
City of Knoxville registration through Knox 911 is required. $0 with zero false alarms, then $10, $20, $30 by history. We do not invent a user-permit price for simply having an alarm. A professionally installed system with a walkthrough is how you stay in the $0 bracket. A scared DIY kit with no delay is how you meet KPD for a toaster and train the department on noise. Knox 911 is the city form. Three desks is the comparison if you are not in the city.
False alarms do not make Knoxville less safe. They make responders less interested in your address. That is the opposite of what you wanted when you searched “is Knoxville safe.” Pay for the install. Learn the cancel process. Add the spouse to the app.
What we will not do with KPD’s report
We will not draw a heat map. We will not rank neighborhoods as good and bad for SEO. We will not tell you Fountain City is unsafe. We will not tell you Farragut is so safe the leftover keypad can wait. We will not use Chief Noel’s or Mayor Kincannon’s quotes as a closer. We will not hide $53.99*, $99 install*, or 36 months behind a crime statistic. We will not take a form. We will not take a tenant on the homeowner promotion.
We will not pretend Q1 2026’s zero murders is a personality trait of the city that lasts forever. KPD said 17 murders in 2025 would be hard to push down further. That was the chief’s challenge, not our headline. Our headline is still occupancy. Empty house. Door. ADT.
School days, not night-time legends
Most of the unsupervised hours in this metro are 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on a Knox County Schools calendar. Farragut, Bearden, West, Hardin Valley Academy, Halls, Karns, Powell, Gibbs, Central, South-Doyle, Fulton, Austin-East. Oak Ridge Schools. Maryville City Schools. Those hours match burglary better than a Saturday night story. School-day empties is the calendar article. Arm the system for those hours even if you only searched this page because a murder total made the news.
UT football empties Fort Sanders on a different calendar. DOE empties Oak Ridge on a weekday calendar. Smokies nights empty some downtown units. One system. Several calendars. Arm whenever the hallway is empty.
What a 7 percent property-crime drop still leaves on a Tuesday
KPD’s property-crime total moving from 7,612 to 7,100 is a real drop. It is also thousands of events. Burglary barely moved. Theft from vehicles barely moved. Motor vehicle theft fell more, which is a garage-contact conversation and a “do not leave the opener on the visor” conversation, not a reason the house can sit open. A 35 percent burglary drop in Q1 2026 is the better trend. Trends are not sensors. Tuesday at 1 p.m. in a Bearden two-story is still an empty house. Tuesday at 1 p.m. in a Halls ranch is still an empty house. The citywide percentage does not sit in either hallway.
We cite the drop so you do not think we need a panic headline to take the order. We cite the 643 burglaries so you do not think a better murder year retired this product. Both citations belong here. Neither one is a heat map. Call (865) 500-6003 with the ZIP you actually live in, not the ZIP a viral clip used.
Independent cities, county streets, and who would actually be called
KPD’s numbers are the City of Knoxville. Farragut Police, Oak Ridge Police, Maryville, and Alcoa are not in that 17-murder figure. A west-side household that treats KPD’s drop as their local grade is reading the wrong report. Confirm the desk from the ZIP. A quieter town still has school-day empties, leftover keypads, and porch boxes. A city ZIP with a better year still has sliders. We install in both when they sit in the TN – Knoxville window. We do not mill Gatlinburg and then quote KPD.
Dispatch after an alarm is the department that serves the address. ADT requests help. The department responds the way that department responds. We will not print a minute count. We will not tell you KPD is “too busy” so you should buy cameras, and we will not tell you Farragut is “so quiet” you should skip sensors. Occupancy is the closer. The report is context.
If you moved from a city 37917 house to a Farragut 37934 house because you wanted a different feel, congratulations. Photograph the leftover panel. File the town’s office, not Knox 911 by default. The move did not bring monitoring with the furniture.
How to order the watch, not the verdict
Call (865) 500-6003. ZIP. House versus condo. Door and slider count. Cameras yes or no. Leftover keypad photo. Hear the monthly price, the install, the agreement, and the registration office. Same-day or next-day in the 19 Knoxville ZIPs and the suburbs we schedule. SafeStreets installs. ADT monitors 24/7.
How to order is the process. How much ADT is is the money. This page is the KPD numbers without the scare. Knoxville homeowners can trust a SafeStreets security system monitored by ADT. Seventeen murders is a better year. Six hundred forty-three burglaries is still a reason the slider needs a contact. A 35 percent first-quarter drop in 2026 is still not a person at a monitoring center. The 865 call is how you get the person.