Crime in Iowa (2024)
Iowa agencies reported 48,936 offenses to the FBI in 2024: 7,664 violent crimes, 41,022 property crimes and 250 arsons, across 254 reporting agencies.
Per 100,000 residents
Against a 2024 population of 3,230,454 (Census estimates). A floor: Iowa agencies that did not report contribute nothing.
Offenses by category
| Offense | Offenses | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Murder & nonnegligent manslaughter | 68 | 0.1% |
| Rape | 1,104 | 2.3% |
| Robbery | 599 | 1.2% |
| Aggravated assault | 5,893 | 12.0% |
| Burglary | 6,275 | 12.8% |
| Larceny-theft | 30,480 | 62.3% |
| Motor vehicle theft | 4,267 | 8.7% |
| Arson | 250 | 0.5% |
By county
Counties with sufficient reporting coverage (91 of Iowa's counties).
- Adair County
- Adams County
- Allamakee County
- Appanoose County
- Benton County
- Black Hawk County
- Boone County
- Bremer County
- Buchanan County
- Buena Vista County
- Butler County
- Carroll County
- Cass County
- Cedar County
- Cerro Gordo County
- Cherokee County
- Chickasaw County
- Clarke County
- Clay County
- Clayton County
- Clinton County
- Crawford County
- Dallas County
- Davis County
- Delaware County
- Des Moines County
- Dubuque County
- Emmet County
- Fayette County
- Floyd County
- Franklin County
- Fremont County
- Greene County
- Grundy County
- Guthrie County
- Hamilton County
- Hancock County
- Hardin County
- Henry County
- Howard County
- Humboldt County
- Ida County
- Iowa County
- Jackson County
- Jasper County
- Jefferson County
- Johnson County
- Jones County
- Keokuk County
- Kossuth County
- Lee County
- Linn County
- Louisa County
- Lucas County
- Lyon County
- Madison County
- Mahaska County
- Marion County
- Marshall County
- Mills County
- Mitchell County
- Monona County
- Montgomery County
- Muscatine County
- O'Brien County
- Osceola County
- Page County
- Palo Alto County
- Plymouth County
- Pocahontas County
- Polk County
- Pottawattamie County
- Poweshiek County
- Sac County
- Scott County
- Shelby County
- Sioux County
- Story County
- Tama County
- Taylor County
- Union County
- Van Buren County
- Wapello County
- Warren County
- Washington County
- Wayne County
- Webster County
- Winneshiek County
- Woodbury County
- Worth County
- Wright County
Largest reporting agencies
| Agency | Violent | Property | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Des Moines Police Department | 1,471 | 6,542 | 8,047 |
| Davenport Police Department | 581 | 3,538 | 4,138 |
| Cedar Rapids Police Department | 354 | 3,640 | 4,003 |
| Sioux City Police Department | 476 | 2,849 | 3,345 |
| Waterloo Police Department | 316 | 1,623 | 1,956 |
| Council Bluffs Police Department | 262 | 1,527 | 1,797 |
| Iowa City Police Department | 244 | 1,271 | 1,519 |
| West Des Moines Police Department | 121 | 1,257 | 1,380 |
| Ames Police Department | 97 | 985 | 1,084 |
| Dubuque Police Department | 235 | 841 | 1,082 |
| Fort Dodge Police Department | 260 | 783 | 1,056 |
| Ankeny Police Department | 127 | 782 | 909 |
| Ottumwa Police Department | 100 | 659 | 763 |
| Clinton Police Department | 87 | 659 | 755 |
| Mason City Police Department | 60 | 622 | 686 |
How to read these numbers
Counts are offenses reported by law-enforcement agencies to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program for 2024(Return A master file, which incorporates the FBI's own NIBRS-to-SRS conversion for agencies that report incident-based data). Nothing here is estimated: an agency that did not report contributes nothing, so totals are floors, not universes.
County figures use headquarters-county assignment: an agency's offenses count in the county where it is headquartered. Sheriff and state-police activity can span county lines; a county's figure is best read as "offenses reported by agencies based here." Counties where reporting agencies cover less than half of the policed population get no page; between 50% and 80% the page carries a visible partial-coverage notice.
Rates per 100,000 residentsuse Census Population Estimates (PEP) for the same year as the crime data. They appear only where the population served by agencies headquartered in a county is within 10% of the population that lives there. Where a police force covers several counties — the NYPD polices five boroughs from its Manhattan headquarters — the two geographies disagree, and a rate would be wrong by several times over in both directions. Those counties show counts without a rate rather than a number that looks authoritative and isn't.
Because non-reporting agencies contribute nothing, every rate here is a floor: the true rate is at least this high. Rates are most comparable between places with similar reporting coverage, which each page states.
Violent crime = murder + rape + robbery + aggravated assault. Property crime = burglary + larceny-theft + motor vehicle theft. Arson is tracked separately (from the FBI's de-duplicated SRS/NIBRS arson data) and is excluded from the property composite, following FBI practice. Aggravated assault excludes simple assault.
These figures will not match the FBI's published national estimates(which impute for non-reporting agencies) or the 12-month quarterly trend windows elsewhere on this site — different universes, both documented.