Elmira, NY has a F safety grade (16/100) with a violent crime rate of 547 per 100,000, 55% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · mid-size city
Elmira (26,130 people) sits in the mid-size municipal band. This page opens with per-100,000 FBI UCR rates, then NY and national benchmarks.
Data updated 2026-09-05
Elmira, NY is among the highest-crime cities in the country, and earns an F PlainCrime safety grade, where violent crime runs 55% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Elmira, NY shows violent crime at 547.3 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 4,137 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 55% 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.
2020–2024 direction
Across 4 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 220.0 per 100,000 in 2020 to 547.3 in 2024 (+148.8%). The highest observed value was 547.3 in 2024 and the lowest 220.0 in 2020. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Position in the state cohort
At 547.3 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Elmira ranks 13 of 326 — above 313 of the 325 other New York cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +805.7% against the cohort median of 60.4. 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 Elmira's 547.3 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Mount Vernon (544.1), Binghamton (532.6), Utica (527.8), Rochester (582.3). 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 11.7% of the 1,224 Part I offenses reported in Elmira for 2024, against a median of 6.8% across comparable New York cities — a gap of 4.9 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 Elmira'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 7.3 Census sq mi, Elmira logged 149.1 property and 19.7 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Elmira's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (78% of 1,224 offenses; mix index 6,190).
Violent offenses are only 12% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Elmira offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (7.3 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 | 1,081 | 4137 |
| Larceny-Theft | 949 | 3631.8 |
| Burglary | 112 | 428.6 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 20 | 76.5 |
| Arson | 7 | 26.8 |
| Violent Crime | 143 | 547.3 |
| Aggravated Assault | 115 | 440.1 |
| Robbery | 22 | 84.2 |
| Rape | 5 | 19.1 |
| Murder | 1 | 3.8 |
The chart omits 2021 rather than drawing an unsupported zero or partial-coverage dip. The table preserves the year and marks the gap.
Lead series · rose across 4 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · rose · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 26,820 | 220 | 3050 |
| 2021 | Insufficient reporting | 26,834 | - | - |
| 2022 | Comparable | 26,237 | 339.2 | 3094.9 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 25,527 | 340.8 | 3278.9 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 26,130 | 547.3 | 4137 |
Elmira Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Elmira's 1,224 reported offenses (4-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 New York cities closest to Elmira in population. Their populations run from 25,054 to 27,767, against 26,130 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Elmira sits at 547.3/100K violent (grade F); the New York cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Elmira at 547.3/100K violent and 4,137/100K property - matched below outside New York (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
547.3/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
4,137/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
Out-of-state cities whose violent rate moved a similar share from 2023→2024 (+60.6% here); level-based peers above are excluded.
In 2024, Elmira reported 143 violent crimes and 1,081 property crimes, for a total of 1,224 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Elmira's violent crime rate increased by 60.6%, and the property crime rate increased by 26.2%.
The most common crime type in Elmira is larceny-theft, accounting for 77.5% of all reported crimes (949 incidents in 2024).
Mid-size read: Elmira 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 Elmira's mid-size city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Elmira, NY rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.
Bulk download: city crime dataset (CSV/JSON)
Put this to use
Put the Elmira, NY 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. Elmira is scored in the mid-size municipal band (26,130 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.