East Alton, IL has a C safety grade (41/100) with a violent crime rate of 447 per 100,000, 27% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · small city
East Alton is a small municipal reporter (5,596 on the UCR row). Per-100,000 violent and property rates are shown with IL and U.S. context.
Data updated 2026-09-05
East Alton, IL is among the highest-crime cities in the country, and earns a C PlainCrime safety grade, where violent crime runs 27% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, East Alton, IL shows violent crime at 446.7 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 1,608.3 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 27% above the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade C from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
Small-count caution
East Alton reported 25 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 5,596. 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.
Position in the state cohort
At 446.7 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, East Alton ranks 40 of 506 — above 466 of the 505 other Illinois cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +348.2% 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 East Alton's 446.7 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Waukegan (445.2), Virden (444.7), Zion (452.9), Anna (440.3). 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.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 21.7% of the 115 Part I offenses reported in East Alton for 2024, against a median of 11.2% across comparable Illinois cities — a gap of 10.5 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 3 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 439.2 per 100,000 in 2020 to 446.7 in 2024 (+1.7%). The highest observed value was 446.7 in 2024 and the lowest 336.9 in 2023. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property counts dominate East Alton'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 25 reported violent incidents in a population of 5,596. 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.
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 5.3 Census sq mi, East Alton logged 16.9 property and 4.7 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
East Alton leans on larceny-theft at 58% of reported offenses, with a moderate mix index of 3,984.
Violent offenses are 22% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
East Alton offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (5.3 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 | 90 | 1608.3 |
| Larceny-Theft | 67 | 1197.3 |
| Burglary | 17 | 303.8 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 6 | 107.2 |
| Arson | 2 | 35.7 |
| Violent Crime | 25 | 446.7 |
| Aggravated Assault | 21 | 375.3 |
| Rape | 3 | 53.6 |
| Robbery | 1 | 17.9 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
The chart omits 2021, 2022 rather than drawing an unsupported zero or partial-coverage dip. The table preserves the year and marks the gap.
Lead series · rose across 3 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · rose · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 5,920 | 439.2 | 1216.2 |
| 2021 | Insufficient reporting | 5,889 | - | - |
| 2022 | Insufficient reporting | 5,740 | - | - |
| 2023 | Comparable | 5,639 | 336.9 | 1099.5 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 5,596 | 446.7 | 1608.3 |
East Alton Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind East Alton's 115 reported offenses (3-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 Illinois cities closest to East Alton in population. Their populations run from 5,477 to 5,699, against 5,596 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
East Alton sits at 446.7/100K violent (grade C); the Illinois cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
In 2024, East Alton reported 25 violent crimes and 90 property crimes, for a total of 115 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, East Alton's violent crime rate increased by 32.6%, and the property crime rate increased by 46.3%.
The most common crime type in East Alton is larceny-theft, accounting for 58.3% of all reported crimes (67 incidents in 2024).
Small-city read: East Alton 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 East Alton's small city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 East Alton, IL rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.
Bulk download: city crime dataset (CSV/JSON)
Put this to use
Put the East Alton, IL 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. East Alton is scored as a small-city UCR reporter (5,596 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.