Coldwater, MI has a B safety grade (65/100) with a violent crime rate of 239 per 100,000, 32% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · mid-size city
Coldwater (14,672 people) sits in the mid-size municipal band. This page opens with per-100,000 FBI UCR rates, then MI and national benchmarks.
Data updated 2026-09-05
Coldwater, MI is higher-crime than most U.S. cities, and earns a B PlainCrime safety grade, where violent crime runs 32% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Coldwater, MI shows violent crime at 238.5 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 1,342.7 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 32% 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 Coldwater's 238.5 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Allen Park (239.0), Wyandotte (239.7), Fraser (236.9), Buchanan (240.6). 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.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 364.4 per 100,000 in 2020 to 238.5 in 2024 (-34.5%). The highest observed value was 476.8 in 2021 and the lowest 238.5 in 2024. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Position in the state cohort
At 238.5 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Coldwater ranks 146 of 366 — above 220 of the 365 other Michigan cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +27.6% against the cohort median of 187.0. 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 88.3% of reported property offenses in Coldwater, against a cohort median of 79.7%. The remainder is burglary (10) and motor vehicle theft (13). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Property counts dominate Coldwater'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.
Mid-size municipal totals above are reported offenses, not safety advice for any single block. Reporting completeness still varies by year and agency.
Across 9.4 Census sq mi, Coldwater logged 20.9 property and 3.7 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Coldwater's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (75% of 232 offenses; mix index 5,802).
Violent offenses are 15% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
Coldwater offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (9.4 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 | 197 | 1342.7 |
| Larceny-Theft | 174 | 1185.9 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 13 | 88.6 |
| Burglary | 10 | 68.2 |
| Arson | 3 | 20.4 |
| Violent Crime | 35 | 238.5 |
| Aggravated Assault | 23 | 156.8 |
| Rape | 12 | 81.8 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
| Robbery | 0 | 0 |
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 | 12,076 | 364.4 | 2095.1 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 11,954 | 476.8 | 2175 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 13,930 | 366.1 | 2505.4 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 13,045 | 345 | 1824.5 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 14,672 | 238.5 | 1342.7 |
Coldwater Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Coldwater's 232 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 Michigan cities closest to Coldwater in population. Their populations run from 14,040 to 14,864, against 14,672 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Coldwater sits at 238.5/100K violent (grade B); the Michigan cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Coldwater at 238.5/100K violent and 1,342.7/100K property - matched below outside Michigan (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
238.5/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
1,342.7/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
In 2024, Coldwater reported 35 violent crimes and 197 property crimes, for a total of 232 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Coldwater's violent crime rate decreased by 30.9%, and the property crime rate decreased by 26.4%.
The most common crime type in Coldwater is larceny-theft, accounting for 75.0% of all reported crimes (174 incidents in 2024).
Mid-size read: Coldwater 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 Coldwater's mid-size city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Coldwater, MI rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.
Bulk download: city crime dataset (CSV/JSON)
Put this to use
Put the Coldwater, MI FBI UCR record to work: compare peers, open the state atlas, or look up another city.
A citywide UCR rate is a starting point, not a neighbourhood verdict: read the full profile and the year coverage notes before drawing conclusions.
Every figure on PlainCrime is rendered directly from FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) source data, no number is typed in by an editor. Coldwater is scored in the mid-size municipal band (14,672 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.