Atlantic, IA has a C safety grade (46/100) with a violent crime rate of 369 per 100,000, 5% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · small city
Atlantic is a small municipal reporter (6,778 on the UCR row). Per-100,000 violent and property rates are shown with IA and U.S. context.
Data updated 2026-08-24
Atlantic, IA carries a PlainCrime C safety grade with violent crime 5% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Atlantic, IA shows violent crime at 368.8 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 1,991.7 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 5% above the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade C from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
Small-count caution
Atlantic reported 25 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 6,778. At this volume one additional or one fewer report moves the per-100,000 rate noticeably, so the figure is better read as a data point than as a precise measurement, and year-to-year swings here are expected.
Position in the state cohort
At 368.8 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Atlantic ranks 21 of 148 — above 127 of the 147 other Iowa cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +158.4% 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.
Comparable rate records
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Atlantic's 368.8 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Sheldon (370.6), Clinton (359.9), Hiawatha (359.6), West Liberty (379.6). 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.
Property-offense composition
Larceny-theft is 88.9% of reported property offenses in Atlantic, against a cohort median of 76.1%. The remainder is burglary (9) and motor vehicle theft (6). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 340.3 per 100,000 in 2020 to 368.8 in 2024 (+8.4%). The highest observed value was 460.9 in 2022 and the lowest 278.8 in 2021. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property counts dominate Atlantic'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.
Based on 25 reported violent incidents in a population of 6,778. At this volume, one additional or one fewer report can shift the rate and letter grade noticeably; small-city crime counts are inherently more volatile year to year than large-city counts, so treat this grade as a data point, not a precise ranking.
Small-city offense counts above are voluntary UCR submissions, not neighbourhood advice. Year-to-year swings can look large when the population base is modest.
Across 8.3 Census sq mi, Atlantic logged 16.3 property and 3 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Atlantic's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (75% of 160 offenses; mix index 5,849).
Violent offenses are 16% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
Atlantic offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (8.3 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 | 135 | 1991.7 |
| Larceny-Theft | 120 | 1770.4 |
| Burglary | 9 | 132.8 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 6 | 88.5 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 25 | 368.8 |
| Aggravated Assault | 21 | 309.8 |
| Rape | 4 | 59 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
| Robbery | 0 | 0 |
Lead series · rose across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · rose · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 6,465 | 340.3 | 1624.1 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 6,457 | 278.8 | 1579.7 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 6,726 | 460.9 | 1843.6 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 6,761 | 414.1 | 1789.7 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 6,778 | 368.8 | 1991.7 |
Atlantic Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Atlantic's 160 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 Atlantic in population. Their populations run from 6,221 to 7,230, against 6,778 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Atlantic sits at 368.8/100K violent (grade C); the Iowa cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
In 2024, Atlantic reported 25 violent crimes and 135 property crimes, for a total of 160 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Atlantic's violent crime rate decreased by 10.9%, and the property crime rate increased by 11.3%.
The most common crime type in Atlantic is larceny-theft, accounting for 75.0% of all reported crimes (120 incidents in 2024).
Small-city read: Atlantic is sourced from FBI UCR Table 8 for 2024; rates use that row's population.
Small-city rows use the same per-100,000 formula; a few unreported years can leave gaps in the trend table. Verify the agency's submission on FBI.gov UCR.
Disclaimer (small city): UCR counts here are informational only. They are not a victimization probability. Source: FBI UCR Program.
Small-city rate methodology for how Atlantic's small city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Atlantic, 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. Atlantic is scored as a small-city UCR reporter (6,778 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.