Ames, IA has a B safety grade (72/100) with a violent crime rate of 148 per 100,000, 58% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · large city
At 65,426 residents, Ames is a large city: FBI UCR Table 8 rates (per 100,000) here are read against IA and U.S. averages before the offense-family breakdown.
Data updated 2026-08-24
Ames, IA carries a PlainCrime B safety grade with violent crime 58% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Ames, IA shows violent crime at 148.3 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 1,505.5 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 58% 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 Ames's 148.3 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Monroe (148.2), Woodward (146.3), Missouri Valley (151.0), Altoona (142.7). 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.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 9.0% of the 1,082 Part I offenses reported in Ames for 2024, against a median of 15.9% across comparable Iowa cities — a gap of 6.9 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.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 181.8 per 100,000 in 2020 to 148.3 in 2024 (-18.4%). The highest observed value was 210.9 in 2022 and the lowest 148.3 in 2024. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Position in the state cohort
At 148.3 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Ames ranks 72 of 148 — above 76 of the 147 other Iowa cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +3.9% against the cohort median of 142.7. 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 Ames'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.
On a large city row, these are citywide reported offense totals - not neighbourhood advice. Conditions vary by place and time; reporting rates differ across jurisdictions.
Across 28.2 Census sq mi, Ames logged 34.9 property and 3.4 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Ames's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (75% of 1,082 offenses; mix index 5,834).
Violent offenses are only 9% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Ames offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (28.2 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 | 985 | 1505.5 |
| Larceny-Theft | 814 | 1244.2 |
| Burglary | 113 | 172.7 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 58 | 88.6 |
| Arson | 2 | 3.1 |
| Violent Crime | 97 | 148.3 |
| Rape | 46 | 70.3 |
| Aggravated Assault | 46 | 70.3 |
| Robbery | 5 | 7.6 |
| 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 | 67,109 | 181.8 | 1776.2 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 67,886 | 200.3 | 1347.8 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 66,852 | 210.9 | 1298.4 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 67,186 | 172.7 | 1390.2 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 65,426 | 148.3 | 1505.5 |
Ames Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Ames's 1,082 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 Ames in population. Their populations run from 47,119 to 85,711, against 65,426 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Ames sits at 148.3/100K violent (grade B); the Iowa cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Ames at 148.3/100K violent and 1,505.5/100K property - matched below outside Iowa (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
148.3/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
1,505.5/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
Out-of-state cities whose violent rate moved a similar share from 2023→2024 (-14.1% here); level-based peers above are excluded.
In 2024, Ames reported 97 violent crimes and 985 property crimes, for a total of 1,082 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Ames's violent crime rate decreased by 14.1%, and the property crime rate increased by 8.3%.
The most common crime type in Ames is larceny-theft, accounting for 75.2% of all reported crimes (814 incidents in 2024).
Large-city read: Ames's rates come from the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, CIUS Table 8, vintage 2024.
Incomplete reporters stay out of rate rankings. Cross-check population with Census ACS; state UCR programs for statewide context. Primary verify links: FBI.gov UCR, Census QuickFacts.
Disclaimer (large city): informational crime rates only - not legal, insurance, or personal-safety advice. Source: FBI UCR. Ask a qualified professional before acting.
Large-city rate methodology for how Ames's large city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Ames, 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. Ames is scored here as a large city UCR reporter (65,426 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.