Decatur, AR has a D safety grade (25/100) with a violent crime rate of 644 per 100,000, 83% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · small municipal
Decatur's UCR row covers a small municipal population (1,707). Rates below are per 100,000 and sit next to AR and U.S. averages.
Data updated 2026-08-24
Decatur, AR carries a PlainCrime D safety grade with violent crime 83% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Decatur, AR shows violent crime at 644.4 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 1,230.2 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 83% 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
Decatur reported 11 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 1,707. 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 Decatur's 644.4 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Mayflower (636.9), Sherwood (635.1), Malvern (654.4), Pocahontas (665.1). 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 644.4 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Decatur ranks 38 of 204 — above 166 of the 203 other Arkansas cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +110.5% against the cohort median of 306.2. Cities that did not report, or that reported implausibly low totals, are excluded from this cohort rather than counted as low-crime.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 34.4% of the 32 Part I offenses reported in Decatur for 2024, against a median of 21.0% across comparable Arkansas cities — a gap of 13.4 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.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 999.4 per 100,000 in 2020 to 644.4 in 2024 (-35.5%). The highest observed value was 999.4 in 2020 and the lowest 346.2 in 2022. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property counts dominate Decatur'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 11 reported violent incidents in a population of 1,707. 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 4.8 Census sq mi, Decatur logged 4.4 property and 2.3 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Decatur leans on larceny-theft at 50% of reported offenses, with a moderate mix index of 3,457.
Violent offenses are 34% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
Decatur offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (4.8 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 | 21 | 1230.2 |
| Larceny-Theft | 16 | 937.3 |
| Burglary | 5 | 292.9 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 0 | 0 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 11 | 644.4 |
| Aggravated Assault | 8 | 468.7 |
| Rape | 3 | 175.7 |
| 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 | 1,801 | 999.4 | 2498.6 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 1,800 | 833.3 | 2222.2 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 1,733 | 346.2 | 1500.3 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 1,726 | 579.4 | 2085.7 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 1,707 | 644.4 | 1230.2 |
Decatur Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Decatur's 32 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 Arkansas cities closest to Decatur in population. Their populations run from 1,623 to 1,803, against 1,707 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Decatur sits at 644.4/100K violent (grade D); the Arkansas cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
In 2024, Decatur reported 11 violent crimes and 21 property crimes, for a total of 32 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Decatur's violent crime rate increased by 11.2%, and the property crime rate decreased by 41%.
The most common crime type in Decatur is larceny-theft, accounting for 50.0% of all reported crimes (16 incidents in 2024).
Micro-municipal read: Decatur'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 Decatur's small municipal row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Decatur, AR 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. Decatur is scored as a small municipal UCR reporter (1,707 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.