Altoona, IA has a B safety grade (68/100) with a violent crime rate of 143 per 100,000, 59% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · mid-size city
Altoona (22,422 people) sits in the mid-size municipal band. This page opens with per-100,000 FBI UCR rates, then IA and national benchmarks.
Data updated 2026-08-24
Altoona, IA carries a PlainCrime B safety grade with violent crime 59% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Altoona, IA shows violent crime at 142.7 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 2,011.4 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 59% below the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade B from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
Comparable rate records
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Altoona's 142.7 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Waukee (141.9), Waverly (141.4), Fairfield (140.5), Oskaloosa (140.1). These are same-year agency submissions that pass the same completeness screen, not a claim that the cities have identical conditions. They make the cohort position above checkable against named records instead of a generic state average.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 277.7 per 100,000 in 2020 to 142.7 in 2024 (-48.6%). The highest observed value was 277.7 in 2020 and the lowest 142.7 in 2024. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 6.6% of the 483 Part I offenses reported in Altoona for 2024, against a median of 15.9% across comparable Iowa cities — a gap of 9.3 points. Offense mix is shaped by which agencies report and how incidents are classified as well as by the underlying offenses, so it describes the reported record rather than a settled difference in conditions.
Property-offense composition
Larceny-theft is 88.2% of reported property offenses in Altoona, against a cohort median of 76.1%. The remainder is burglary (26) and motor vehicle theft (27). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Position in the state cohort
At 142.7 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Altoona ranks 75 of 148 — above 73 of the 147 other Iowa cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is -2.5% against the cohort median of 146.3. Cities that did not report, or that reported implausibly low totals, are excluded from this cohort rather than counted as low-crime.
Property counts dominate Altoona's FBI UCR Table 8 municipal row. Per-100,000 rates use the reporting-year population on that row; cities that fail the completeness test stay out of rate rankings. A citywide figure rarely describes any single neighbourhood inside the municipal boundary.
Mid-size municipal totals above are reported offenses, not safety advice for any single block. Reporting completeness still varies by year and agency.
Across 13.3 Census sq mi, Altoona logged 33.9 property and 2.4 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Altoona's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (82% of 483 offenses; mix index 6,882).
Violent offenses are only 7% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Altoona offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (13.3 sq mi); mix index is HHI x 10,000 on the offense-type shares above. Distinct from the per-100K rates in the hero.
| Offense | Count | Rate /100K |
|---|---|---|
| Property Crime | 451 | 2011.4 |
| Larceny-Theft | 398 | 1775 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 27 | 120.4 |
| Burglary | 26 | 116 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 32 | 142.7 |
| Aggravated Assault | 27 | 120.4 |
| Robbery | 3 | 13.4 |
| Rape | 2 | 8.9 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
Lead series · fell across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · fell · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 19,804 | 277.7 | 2231.9 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 20,064 | 274.1 | 1913.9 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 21,830 | 197 | 1562.1 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 22,492 | 160.1 | 1969.6 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 22,422 | 142.7 | 2011.4 |
Altoona Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Altoona's 483 reported offenses (5-year span 2020-2024).
This agency reports via NIBRS, the incident-based system that captures more detail per offense (multiple crimes per incident, victim/offender data) than the older summary counts.
Crime rates read differently at different scales, so these are the Iowa cities closest to Altoona in population. Their populations run from 21,635 to 25,185, against 22,422 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Altoona sits at 142.7/100K violent (grade B); the Iowa cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Altoona at 142.7/100K violent and 2,011.4/100K property - matched below outside Iowa (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
142.7/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
2,011.4/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
In 2024, Altoona reported 32 violent crimes and 451 property crimes, for a total of 483 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Altoona's violent crime rate decreased by 10.9%, and the property crime rate increased by 2.1%.
The most common crime type in Altoona is larceny-theft, accounting for 82.4% of all reported crimes (398 incidents in 2024).
Mid-size read: Altoona figures are FBI UCR CIUS Table 8 (vintage 2024), population-adjusted per 100,000.
Denominators are the reporting-year population on the municipal row. Incomplete years are dropped from rankings. Confirm at FBI Crime Data Explorer and Census.gov QuickFacts.
Disclaimer (mid-size municipal): figures are informational, not advice. FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program is the source. Consult a professional before decisions.
Mid-size rate methodology for how Altoona's mid-size city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Altoona, IA rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.
Bulk download: city crime dataset (CSV/JSON)
Every figure on PlainCrime is rendered directly from FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) source data, no number is typed in by an editor. Altoona is scored in the mid-size municipal band (22,422 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.