De Soto, MO has a F safety grade (17/100) with a violent crime rate of 538 per 100,000, 53% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · small city
De Soto is a small municipal reporter (6,509 on the UCR row). Per-100,000 violent and property rates are shown with MO and U.S. context.
Data updated 2026-09-05
De Soto, MO is among the highest-crime cities in the country, and earns an F PlainCrime safety grade, where violent crime runs 53% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, De Soto, MO shows violent crime at 537.7 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 3,395.3 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 53% above the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade F from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
2020–2024 direction
Across 4 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 47.3 per 100,000 in 2020 to 537.7 in 2024 (+1036.6%). The highest observed value was 537.7 in 2024 and the lowest 47.3 in 2020. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Comparable rate records
The nearest comparable 2024 records to De Soto's 537.7 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Nevada (543.7), Sedalia (545.0), Overland (527.4), Harrisonville (553.2). 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.
Position in the state cohort
At 537.7 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, De Soto ranks 43 of 272 — above 229 of the 271 other Missouri cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +191.7% against the cohort median of 184.3. 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 87.8% of reported property offenses in De Soto, against a cohort median of 78.6%. The remainder is burglary (11) and motor vehicle theft (16). 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.
Small-city offense counts above are voluntary UCR submissions, not neighbourhood advice. Year-to-year swings can look large when the population base is modest.
Across 4.4 Census sq mi, De Soto logged 50.4 property and 8 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
De Soto's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (76% of 256 offenses; mix index 5,924).
Violent offenses are only 14% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
De Soto offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (4.4 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 | 221 | 3395.3 |
| Larceny-Theft | 194 | 2980.5 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 16 | 245.8 |
| Burglary | 11 | 169 |
| Arson | 1 | 15.4 |
| Violent Crime | 35 | 537.7 |
| Aggravated Assault | 28 | 430.2 |
| Robbery | 4 | 61.5 |
| Rape | 3 | 46.1 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
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 | 6,341 | 47.3 | 1450.9 |
| 2021 | Insufficient reporting | 6,335 | - | - |
| 2022 | Comparable | 6,417 | 109.1 | 233.8 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 6,452 | 387.5 | 2882.8 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 6,509 | 537.7 | 3395.3 |
De Soto Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind De Soto's 256 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 Missouri cities closest to De Soto in population. Their populations run from 6,192 to 6,827, against 6,509 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
De Soto sits at 537.7/100K violent (grade F); the Missouri cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
In 2024, De Soto reported 35 violent crimes and 221 property crimes, for a total of 256 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, De Soto's violent crime rate increased by 38.8%, and the property crime rate increased by 17.8%.
The most common crime type in De Soto is larceny-theft, accounting for 75.8% of all reported crimes (194 incidents in 2024).
Small-city read: De Soto is sourced from FBI UCR Table 8 for 2024; rates use that row's population.
Small-city rows use the same per-100,000 formula; a few unreported years can leave gaps in the trend table. Verify the agency's submission on FBI.gov UCR.
Disclaimer (small city): UCR counts here are informational only. They are not a victimization probability. Source: FBI UCR Program.
Small-city rate methodology for how De Soto's small city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 De Soto, MO rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.
Bulk download: city crime dataset (CSV/JSON)
Put this to use
Put the De Soto, MO 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. De Soto is scored as a small-city UCR reporter (6,509 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.