Bel Air, MD has a C safety grade (59/100) with a violent crime rate of 240 per 100,000, 32% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · mid-size city
Bel Air (10,422 people) sits in the mid-size municipal band. This page opens with per-100,000 FBI UCR rates, then MD and national benchmarks.
Data updated 2026-08-24
Bel Air, MD carries a PlainCrime C safety grade with violent crime 32% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Bel Air, MD shows violent crime at 239.9 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 2,005.4 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 32% below 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
Bel Air reported 25 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 10,422. 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.
Comparable rate records
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Bel Air's 239.9 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Westminster (241.9), Chestertown (231.5), Gaithersburg (252.9), Cheverly (217.8). 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 4 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 187.8 per 100,000 in 2020 to 239.9 in 2024 (+27.7%). The highest observed value was 239.9 in 2024 and the lowest 178.0 in 2022. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property-offense composition
Larceny-theft is 90.9% of reported property offenses in Bel Air, against a cohort median of 77.3%. The remainder is burglary (10) and motor vehicle theft (9). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 10.7% of the 234 Part I offenses reported in Bel Air for 2024, against a median of 14.6% across comparable Maryland cities — a gap of 3.9 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.
Position in the state cohort
At 239.9 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Bel Air ranks 39 of 72 — above 33 of the 71 other Maryland cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is -18.1% against the cohort median of 293.0. 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 Bel Air'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 10,422. 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.
Mid-size municipal totals above are reported offenses, not safety advice for any single block. Reporting completeness still varies by year and agency.
Bel Air's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (81% of 234 offenses; mix index 6,701).
Violent offenses are only 11% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Bel Air offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (when validated); 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 | 209 | 2005.4 |
| Larceny-Theft | 190 | 1823.1 |
| Burglary | 10 | 96 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 9 | 86.4 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 25 | 239.9 |
| Aggravated Assault | 20 | 191.9 |
| Robbery | 3 | 28.8 |
| Murder | 1 | 9.6 |
| Rape | 1 | 9.6 |
The chart omits 2021 rather than drawing an unsupported zero or partial-coverage dip. The table preserves the year and marks the gap.
Lead series · rose across 4 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · rose · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 10,116 | 187.8 | 1383.9 |
| 2021 | Insufficient reporting | 10,278 | - | - |
| 2022 | Comparable | 10,675 | 178 | 2510.5 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 10,545 | 189.7 | 2238 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 10,422 | 239.9 | 2005.4 |
Bel Air Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Bel Air's 234 reported offenses (4-year span 2020-2024, with internal gaps).
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 Maryland cities closest to Bel Air in population. Their populations run from 8,055 to 13,312, against 10,422 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Bel Air sits at 239.9/100K violent (grade C); the Maryland cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Bel Air at 239.9/100K violent and 2,005.4/100K property - matched below outside Maryland (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
239.9/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
2,005.4/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
In 2024, Bel Air reported 25 violent crimes and 209 property crimes, for a total of 234 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Bel Air's violent crime rate increased by 26.5%, and the property crime rate decreased by 10.4%.
The most common crime type in Bel Air is larceny-theft, accounting for 81.2% of all reported crimes (190 incidents in 2024).
Mid-size read: Bel Air 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 Bel Air's mid-size city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Bel Air, MD 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. Bel Air is scored in the mid-size municipal band (10,422 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.