Decatur, IL has a F safety grade (15/100) with a violent crime rate of 602 per 100,000, 71% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · large city
At 67,934 residents, Decatur is a large city: FBI UCR Table 8 rates (per 100,000) here are read against IL and U.S. averages before the offense-family breakdown.
Data updated 2026-08-24
Decatur, IL carries a PlainCrime F safety grade with violent crime 71% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Decatur, IL shows violent crime at 602.1 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 2,867.5 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 71% 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.
Position in the state cohort
At 602.1 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Decatur ranks 18 of 506 — above 488 of the 505 other Illinois cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +504.1% against the cohort median of 99.7. 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 Decatur's 602.1 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Rock Falls (596.8), Eldorado (589.1), Granite City (617.8), Paris (577.4). 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 53.4% of reported property offenses in Decatur, against a cohort median of 70.3%. The remainder is burglary (630) and motor vehicle theft (277). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 17.4% of the 2,357 Part I offenses reported in Decatur for 2024, against a median of 11.2% across comparable Illinois cities — a gap of 6.1 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 696.8 per 100,000 in 2020 to 602.1 in 2024 (-13.6%). The highest observed value was 852.7 in 2021 and the lowest 602.1 in 2024. 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.
On a large city row, these are citywide reported offense totals - not neighbourhood advice. Conditions vary by place and time; reporting rates differ across jurisdictions.
Across 43.7 Census sq mi, Decatur logged 44.6 property and 9.4 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Decatur leans on larceny-theft at 44% of reported offenses, with a moderate mix index of 2,986.
Violent offenses are 17% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
Decatur offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (43.7 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 | 1,948 | 2867.5 |
| Larceny-Theft | 1,041 | 1532.4 |
| Burglary | 630 | 927.4 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 277 | 407.7 |
| Arson | 33 | 48.6 |
| Violent Crime | 409 | 602.1 |
| Aggravated Assault | 309 | 454.9 |
| Robbery | 64 | 94.2 |
| Rape | 31 | 45.6 |
| Murder | 5 | 7.4 |
Lead series · rose across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · fell · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 70,175 | 696.8 | 2797.3 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 69,426 | 852.7 | 2634.5 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 68,789 | 713.8 | 2546.9 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 68,301 | 683.7 | 2650 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 67,934 | 602.1 | 2867.5 |
Decatur Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Decatur's 2,357 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 Illinois cities closest to Decatur in population. Their populations run from 56,593 to 74,882, against 67,934 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Decatur sits at 602.1/100K violent (grade F); the Illinois cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Decatur at 602.1/100K violent and 2,867.5/100K property - matched below outside Illinois (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
602.1/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
2,867.5/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
Out-of-state cities whose violent rate moved a similar share from 2023→2024 (-11.9% here); level-based peers above are excluded.
In 2024, Decatur reported 409 violent crimes and 1,948 property crimes, for a total of 2,357 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Decatur's violent crime rate decreased by 11.9%, and the property crime rate increased by 8.2%.
The most common crime type in Decatur is larceny-theft, accounting for 44.2% of all reported crimes (1,041 incidents in 2024).
Large-city read: Decatur's rates come from the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, CIUS Table 8, vintage 2024.
Incomplete reporters stay out of rate rankings. Cross-check population with Census ACS; state UCR programs for statewide context. Primary verify links: FBI.gov UCR, Census QuickFacts.
Disclaimer (large city): informational crime rates only - not legal, insurance, or personal-safety advice. Source: FBI UCR. Ask a qualified professional before acting.
Large-city rate methodology for how Decatur's large city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Decatur, IL 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 here as a large city UCR reporter (67,934 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.