Dover, DE has a F safety grade (0/100) with a violent crime rate of 1013 per 100,000, 188% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · mid-size city
Dover (40,087 people) sits in the mid-size municipal band. This page opens with per-100,000 FBI UCR rates, then DE and national benchmarks.
Data updated 2026-09-05
Dover, DE is among the highest-crime cities in the country, and earns an F PlainCrime safety grade, where violent crime runs 188% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Dover, DE shows violent crime at 1,012.8 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 6,069.3 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 188% 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 1012.8 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Dover ranks 5 of 38 — above 33 of the 37 other Delaware cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +244.2% against the cohort median of 294.2. 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 Dover's 1012.8 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Wilmington (1127.0), Seaford (1133.6), Milford (791.3), Blades (748.5). 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.
Share of the state cohort
The 2,839 Part I offenses reported here are 26.3% of the 10,777 reported across all 38 comparable Delaware cities in 2024. A city this large moves the statewide municipal total on its own, so state-level changes should be read against its population of 40,087 rather than as a uniform shift.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 853.5 per 100,000 in 2020 to 1012.8 in 2024 (+18.7%). The highest observed value was 1012.8 in 2024 and the lowest 824.7 in 2022. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property-offense composition
Larceny-theft is 91.8% of reported property offenses in Dover, against a cohort median of 80.7%. The remainder is burglary (56) and motor vehicle theft (143). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Property counts dominate Dover'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.
Mid-size municipal totals above are reported offenses, not safety advice for any single block. Reporting completeness still varies by year and agency.
Across 23.8 Census sq mi, Dover logged 102.2 property and 17 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Dover's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (79% of 2,839 offenses; mix index 6,365).
Violent offenses are only 14% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Dover offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (23.8 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 | 2,433 | 6069.3 |
| Larceny-Theft | 2,234 | 5572.9 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 143 | 356.7 |
| Burglary | 56 | 139.7 |
| Arson | 8 | 20 |
| Violent Crime | 406 | 1012.8 |
| Aggravated Assault | 337 | 840.7 |
| Robbery | 46 | 114.8 |
| Rape | 16 | 39.9 |
| Murder | 7 | 17.5 |
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 | 38,428 | 853.5 | 4004.9 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 38,439 | 936.5 | 3972.5 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 38,438 | 824.7 | 4594.4 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 38,209 | 997.1 | 5736.9 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 40,087 | 1012.8 | 6069.3 |
Dover Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Dover's 2,839 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 Delaware cities closest to Dover in population. Their populations run from 7,883 to 71,958, against 40,087 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Dover sits at 1,012.8/100K violent (grade F); the Delaware cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Dover at 1,012.8/100K violent and 6,069.3/100K property - matched below outside Delaware (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
1,012.8/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
6,069.3/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
Out-of-state cities whose violent rate moved a similar share from 2023→2024 (+1.6% here); level-based peers above are excluded.
In 2024, Dover reported 406 violent crimes and 2,433 property crimes, for a total of 2,839 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Dover's violent crime rate increased by 1.6%, and the property crime rate increased by 5.8%.
The most common crime type in Dover is larceny-theft, accounting for 78.7% of all reported crimes (2,234 incidents in 2024).
Mid-size read: Dover figures are FBI UCR CIUS Table 8 (vintage 2024), population-adjusted per 100,000.
Denominators are the reporting-year population on the municipal row. Incomplete years are dropped from rankings. Confirm at FBI Crime Data Explorer and Census.gov QuickFacts.
Disclaimer (mid-size municipal): figures are informational, not advice. FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program is the source. Consult a professional before decisions.
Mid-size rate methodology for how Dover's mid-size city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Dover, DE rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.
Bulk download: city crime dataset (CSV/JSON)
Put this to use
Put the Dover, DE 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. Dover is scored in the mid-size municipal band (40,087 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.