De Soto, IA has a D safety grade (35/100) with a violent crime rate of 427 per 100,000, 21% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · small municipal
De Soto's UCR row covers a small municipal population (937). Rates below are per 100,000 and sit next to IA and U.S. averages.
Data updated 2026-08-24
De Soto, IA carries a PlainCrime D safety grade with violent crime 21% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, De Soto, IA shows violent crime at 426.9 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 2,561.4 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 21% above the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade D from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
Small-count caution
De Soto reported 4 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 937. 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 426.9 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, De Soto ranks 11 of 148 — above 137 of the 147 other Iowa cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +199.1% 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 De Soto's 426.9 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Council Bluffs (420.8), Burlington (413.8), Dubuque (400.9), Perry (398.9). 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 54.2% of reported property offenses in De Soto, against a cohort median of 76.8%. The remainder is burglary (6) and motor vehicle theft (5). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Property counts dominate De Soto'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 4 reported violent incidents in a population of 937. 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 1.9 Census sq mi, De Soto logged 12.7 property and 2.1 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
De Soto leans on larceny-theft at 46% of reported offenses, with a moderate mix index of 3,138.
Violent offenses are only 14% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
De Soto offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (1.9 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 | 24 | 2561.4 |
| Larceny-Theft | 13 | 1387.4 |
| Burglary | 6 | 640.3 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 5 | 533.6 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 4 | 426.9 |
| Aggravated Assault | 4 | 426.9 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
| Rape | 0 | 0 |
| Robbery | 0 | 0 |
Lead series · fell across 4 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · fell · 2021-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Comparable | 928 | 0 | 0 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 936 | 0 | 641 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 943 | 212.1 | 2333 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 937 | 426.9 | 2561.4 |
De Soto Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind De Soto's 28 reported offenses (4-year span 2021-2024).
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 De Soto in population. Their populations run from 913 to 1,135, against 937 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
De Soto sits at 426.9/100K violent (grade D); the Iowa cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
In 2024, De Soto reported 4 violent crimes and 24 property crimes, for a total of 28 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, De Soto's violent crime rate increased by 101.3%, and the property crime rate increased by 9.8%.
The most common crime type in De Soto is larceny-theft, accounting for 46.4% of all reported crimes (13 incidents in 2024).
Micro-municipal read: De Soto'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 De Soto's small municipal row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 De Soto, 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. De Soto is scored as a small municipal UCR reporter (937 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.