Des Plaines, IL has a A safety grade (78/100) with a violent crime rate of 121 per 100,000, 66% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · large city
At 57,218 residents, Des Plaines 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
Des Plaines, IL carries a PlainCrime A safety grade with violent crime 66% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Des Plaines, IL shows violent crime at 120.6 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 1,139.5 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 66% below the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade A from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 72.9 per 100,000 in 2020 to 120.6 in 2024 (+65.3%). The highest observed value was 142.2 in 2023 and the lowest 72.9 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 Des Plaines's 120.6 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Elk Grove Village (119.7), Berwyn (119.4), Stockton (118.8), Evergreen Park (122.8). 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 52.8% of reported property offenses in Des Plaines, against a cohort median of 70.3%. The remainder is burglary (239) and motor vehicle theft (69). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Position in the state cohort
At 120.6 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Des Plaines ranks 228 of 506 — above 278 of the 505 other Illinois cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +21.0% 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.
Property counts dominate Des Plaines'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 14.2 Census sq mi, Des Plaines logged 45.8 property and 4.8 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Des Plaines leans on larceny-theft at 48% of reported offenses, with a moderate mix index of 3,510.
Violent offenses are only 10% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Des Plaines offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (14.2 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 | 652 | 1139.5 |
| Larceny-Theft | 344 | 601.2 |
| Burglary | 239 | 417.7 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 69 | 120.6 |
| Arson | 2 | 3.5 |
| Violent Crime | 69 | 120.6 |
| Aggravated Assault | 44 | 76.9 |
| Robbery | 14 | 24.5 |
| Rape | 11 | 19.2 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
Lead series · rose across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · rose · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 58,950 | 72.9 | 1068.7 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 58,166 | 132.4 | 1069.4 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 58,425 | 130.1 | 1251.2 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 57,672 | 142.2 | 903.4 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 57,218 | 120.6 | 1139.5 |
Des Plaines Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Des Plaines's 721 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 Des Plaines in population. Their populations run from 51,306 to 56,593, against 57,218 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Des Plaines sits at 120.6/100K violent (grade A); the Illinois cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Des Plaines at 120.6/100K violent and 1,139.5/100K property - matched below outside Illinois (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
120.6/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
1,139.5/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
Out-of-state cities whose violent rate moved a similar share from 2023→2024 (-15.2% here); level-based peers above are excluded.
In 2024, Des Plaines reported 69 violent crimes and 652 property crimes, for a total of 721 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Des Plaines's violent crime rate decreased by 15.2%, and the property crime rate increased by 26.1%.
The most common crime type in Des Plaines is larceny-theft, accounting for 47.7% of all reported crimes (344 incidents in 2024).
Large-city read: Des Plaines'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 Des Plaines's large city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Des Plaines, 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. Des Plaines is scored here as a large city UCR reporter (57,218 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.