Big Lake, MN has a A safety grade (84/100) with a violent crime rate of 132 per 100,000, 63% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · mid-size city
Big Lake (12,904 people) sits in the mid-size municipal band. This page opens with per-100,000 FBI UCR rates, then MN and national benchmarks.
Data updated 2026-08-24
Big Lake, MN carries a PlainCrime A safety grade with violent crime 63% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Big Lake, MN shows violent crime at 131.7 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 341 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 63% below the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade A from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
Small-count caution
Big Lake reported 17 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 12,904. 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 Big Lake's 131.7 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Rogers (131.2), Waite Park (130.8), Belle Plaine (134.5), Gaylord (128.2). 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 27.9% of the 61 Part I offenses reported in Big Lake for 2024, against a median of 10.6% across comparable Minnesota cities — a gap of 17.3 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.
Position in the state cohort
At 131.7 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Big Lake ranks 106 of 276 — above 170 of the 275 other Minnesota cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +34.6% against the cohort median of 97.8. 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 114.5 per 100,000 in 2020 to 131.7 in 2024 (+15.1%). The highest observed value was 131.7 in 2024 and the lowest 51.2 in 2021. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property counts dominate Big Lake'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 17 reported violent incidents in a population of 12,904. 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.
Across 2.1 Census sq mi, Big Lake logged 20.8 property and 8 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Big Lake's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (62% of 61 offenses; mix index 4,319).
Violent offenses are 28% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
Big Lake offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (2.1 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 | 44 | 341 |
| Larceny-Theft | 38 | 294.5 |
| Burglary | 3 | 23.2 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 3 | 23.2 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 17 | 131.7 |
| Rape | 9 | 69.7 |
| Aggravated Assault | 8 | 62 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
| Robbery | 0 | 0 |
Lead series · fell across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · rose · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 11,355 | 114.5 | 405.1 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 11,721 | 51.2 | 494.8 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 12,625 | 55.4 | 261.4 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 12,749 | 62.8 | 376.5 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 12,904 | 131.7 | 341 |
Big Lake Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Big Lake's 61 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 Minnesota cities closest to Big Lake in population. Their populations run from 12,137 to 13,523, against 12,904 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Big Lake sits at 131.7/100K violent (grade A); the Minnesota cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Big Lake at 131.7/100K violent and 341/100K property - matched below outside Minnesota (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
131.7/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
341/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
In 2024, Big Lake reported 17 violent crimes and 44 property crimes, for a total of 61 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Big Lake's violent crime rate increased by 109.7%, and the property crime rate decreased by 9.4%.
The most common crime type in Big Lake is larceny-theft, accounting for 62.3% of all reported crimes (38 incidents in 2024).
Mid-size read: Big Lake 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 Big Lake's mid-size city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Big Lake, MN 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. Big Lake is scored in the mid-size municipal band (12,904 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.