East Helena, MT has a B safety grade (72/100) with a violent crime rate of 136 per 100,000, 61% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · small municipal
East Helena's UCR row covers a small municipal population (2,206). Rates below are per 100,000 and sit next to MT and U.S. averages.
Data updated 2026-08-24
East Helena, MT carries a PlainCrime B safety grade with violent crime 61% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, East Helena, MT shows violent crime at 136 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 1,677.2 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 61% below the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade B from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
Small-count caution
East Helena reported 3 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 2,206. 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.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 473.3 per 100,000 in 2020 to 136.0 in 2024 (-71.3%). The highest observed value was 790.1 in 2023 and the lowest 46.7 in 2021. 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 East Helena's 136.0 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Whitefish (124.4), Libby (151.2), Red Lodge (182.7), West Yellowstone (82.9). 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 136.0 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, East Helena ranks 37 of 44 — above 7 of the 43 other Montana cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is -67.7% against the cohort median of 420.8. 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 7.5% of the 40 Part I offenses reported in East Helena for 2024, against a median of 19.5% across comparable Montana cities — a gap of 12.0 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.
Property counts dominate East Helena'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 3 reported violent incidents in a population of 2,206. 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 4.1 Census sq mi, East Helena logged 9.1 property and 0.7 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
East Helena's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (75% of 40 offenses; mix index 5,838).
Violent offenses are only 8% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
East Helena offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (4.1 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 | 37 | 1677.2 |
| Larceny-Theft | 30 | 1359.9 |
| Burglary | 4 | 181.3 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 3 | 136 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 3 | 136 |
| Aggravated Assault | 3 | 136 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
| Rape | 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 | 2,113 | 473.3 | 2366.3 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 2,140 | 46.7 | 1542.1 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 1,973 | 152.1 | 1520.5 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 2,025 | 790.1 | 1728.4 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 2,206 | 136 | 1677.2 |
East Helena Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind East Helena's 40 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 Montana cities closest to East Helena in population. Their populations run from 1,802 to 2,479, against 2,206 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
East Helena sits at 136/100K violent (grade B); the Montana cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
In 2024, East Helena reported 3 violent crimes and 37 property crimes, for a total of 40 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, East Helena's violent crime rate decreased by 82.8%, and the property crime rate decreased by 3%.
The most common crime type in East Helena is larceny-theft, accounting for 75.0% of all reported crimes (30 incidents in 2024).
Micro-municipal read: East Helena'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 East Helena's small municipal row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 East Helena, MT 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. East Helena is scored as a small municipal UCR reporter (2,206 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.