Buffalo, IA has a A+ safety grade (91/100) with a violent crime rate of 86 per 100,000, 75% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · small municipal
Buffalo's UCR row covers a small municipal population (1,159). Rates below are per 100,000 and sit next to IA and U.S. averages.
Data updated 2026-08-24
Buffalo, IA carries a PlainCrime A+ safety grade with violent crime 75% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Buffalo, IA shows violent crime at 86.3 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 86.3 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 75% 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
Buffalo reported 1 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 1,159. 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.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 50.0% of the 2 Part I offenses reported in Buffalo for 2024, against a median of 15.8% across comparable Iowa cities — a gap of 34.2 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.
Comparable rate records
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Buffalo's 86.3 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are University Heights (85.1), Fairbank (88.1), New Hampton (88.3), Urbandale (89.1). 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 86.3 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Buffalo ranks 111 of 148 — above 37 of the 147 other Iowa cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is -41.0% against the cohort median of 146.3. Cities that did not report, or that reported implausibly low totals, are excluded from this cohort rather than counted as low-crime.
Property-offense composition
Larceny-theft is 100.0% of reported property offenses in Buffalo, against a cohort median of 76.1%. The remainder is burglary (0) and motor vehicle theft (0). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Buffalo's FBI UCR Table 8 municipal row keeps violent and property totals in a closer balance. Per-100,000 rates use the reporting-year population on that row; incomplete reporters stay out of rate rankings. A citywide figure rarely describes any single neighbourhood inside the municipal boundary.
Based on 1 reported violent incidents in a population of 1,159. 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.
On a small municipal row, small denominators make rates sensitive to a handful of incidents. Figures are reported totals, not neighbourhood advice.
Across 6.8 Census sq mi, Buffalo logged 0.1 property and 0.1 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Buffalo's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (50% of 2 offenses; mix index 5,000).
Violent offenses are 50% of the municipal total - a violence-heavy book for a small municipal.
Buffalo offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (6.8 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 | 86.3 |
| Larceny-Theft | 1 | 86.3 |
| Burglary | 0 | 0 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 0 | 0 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 1 | 86.3 |
| Aggravated Assault | 1 | 86.3 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
| Rape | 0 | 0 |
| Robbery | 0 | 0 |
Secondary series · fell · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
Lead series · fell across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 1,272 | 0 | 157.2 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 1,256 | 0 | 716.6 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 1,168 | 85.6 | 342.5 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 1,157 | 86.4 | 345.7 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 1,159 | 86.3 | 86.3 |
Buffalo Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Buffalo's 2 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 Buffalo in population. Their populations run from 983 to 1,256, against 1,159 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
In 2024, Buffalo reported 1 violent crimes and 1 property crimes, for a total of 2 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Buffalo's violent crime rate decreased by 0.1%, and the property crime rate decreased by 75%.
The most common crime type in Buffalo is larceny-theft, accounting for 50.0% of all reported crimes (1 incidents in 2024).
Micro-municipal read: Buffalo's FBI UCR Table 8 row (2024) is the only source for the rates above.
With a small population base, per-100,000 rates amplify sparse counts. Incomplete submissions are excluded from rankings. See FBI.gov UCR for the raw Table 8 file.
Disclaimer (small municipal): small-base rates are especially easy to misread. Informational only - not advice. Source: FBI UCR Program.
Micro-municipal rate methodology for how Buffalo's small municipal row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Buffalo, 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. Buffalo is scored as a small municipal UCR reporter (1,159 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.