Appleton, WI has a B safety grade (68/100) with a violent crime rate of 202 per 100,000, 43% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · large city
At 74,394 residents, Appleton is a large city: FBI UCR Table 8 rates (per 100,000) here are read against WI and U.S. averages before the offense-family breakdown.
Data updated 2026-08-24
Appleton, WI carries a PlainCrime B safety grade with violent crime 43% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Appleton, WI shows violent crime at 201.6 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 1,346.9 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 43% 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 Appleton's 201.6 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Whitewater (200.3), Merrill (199.9), Augusta (198.8), New Lisbon (198.1). 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.
Position in the state cohort
At 201.6 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Appleton ranks 57 of 222 — above 165 of the 221 other Wisconsin cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +88.3% against the cohort median of 107.1. Cities that did not report, or that reported implausibly low totals, are excluded from this cohort rather than counted as low-crime.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 280.1 per 100,000 in 2020 to 201.6 in 2024 (-28.0%). The highest observed value was 318.0 in 2021 and the lowest 201.6 in 2024. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property counts dominate Appleton'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 25.4 Census sq mi, Appleton logged 39.4 property and 5.9 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Appleton's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (73% of 1,152 offenses; mix index 5,534).
Violent offenses are only 13% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Appleton offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (25.4 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 | 1,002 | 1346.9 |
| Larceny-Theft | 841 | 1130.5 |
| Burglary | 114 | 153.2 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 47 | 63.2 |
| Arson | 2 | 2.7 |
| Violent Crime | 150 | 201.6 |
| Aggravated Assault | 102 | 137.1 |
| Rape | 39 | 52.4 |
| Robbery | 7 | 9.4 |
| Murder | 2 | 2.7 |
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 | 74,255 | 280.1 | 1583.7 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 74,204 | 318 | 1323.4 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 74,411 | 272.8 | 1521.3 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 73,921 | 276 | 1421.8 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 74,394 | 201.6 | 1346.9 |
Appleton Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Appleton's 1,152 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 Wisconsin cities closest to Appleton in population. Their populations run from 50,893 to 97,652, against 74,394 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Appleton sits at 201.6/100K violent (grade B); the Wisconsin cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Appleton at 201.6/100K violent and 1,346.9/100K property - matched below outside Wisconsin (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
201.6/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
1,346.9/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
Out-of-state cities whose violent rate moved a similar share from 2023→2024 (-27% here); level-based peers above are excluded.
In 2024, Appleton reported 150 violent crimes and 1,002 property crimes, for a total of 1,152 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Appleton's violent crime rate decreased by 27%, and the property crime rate decreased by 5.3%.
The most common crime type in Appleton is larceny-theft, accounting for 73.0% of all reported crimes (841 incidents in 2024).
Large-city read: Appleton'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 Appleton's large city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Appleton, WI 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. Appleton is scored here as a large city UCR reporter (74,394 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.