Elsmere, DE has a B safety grade (60/100) with a violent crime rate of 245 per 100,000, 31% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · small city
Elsmere is a small municipal reporter (6,135 on the UCR row). Per-100,000 violent and property rates are shown with DE and U.S. context.
Data updated 2026-09-05
Elsmere, DE is higher-crime than most U.S. cities, and earns a B PlainCrime safety grade, where violent crime runs 31% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Elsmere, DE shows violent crime at 244.5 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 1,776.7 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 31% 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
Elsmere reported 15 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 6,135. 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 495.6 per 100,000 in 2020 to 244.5 in 2024 (-50.7%). The highest observed value was 592.2 in 2021 and the lowest 147.3 in 2022. 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 Elsmere's 244.5 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Bridgeville (239.7), Fenwick Island (257.7), Milton (263.6), Dagsboro (201.6). 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 66.1% of reported property offenses in Elsmere, against a cohort median of 81.2%. The remainder is burglary (15) and motor vehicle theft (22). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Position in the state cohort
At 244.5 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Elsmere ranks 24 of 38 — above 14 of the 37 other Delaware cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is -21.1% against the cohort median of 309.7. 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 Elsmere'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 15 reported violent incidents in a population of 6,135. 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 1 Census sq mi, Elsmere logged 110.4 property and 15.2 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Elsmere leans on larceny-theft at 58% of reported offenses, with a moderate mix index of 3,961.
Violent offenses are only 12% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Elsmere offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (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 | 109 | 1776.7 |
| Larceny-Theft | 72 | 1173.6 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 22 | 358.6 |
| Burglary | 15 | 244.5 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 15 | 244.5 |
| Aggravated Assault | 14 | 228.2 |
| Robbery | 1 | 16.3 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
| Rape | 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 | 5,851 | 495.6 | 1880 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 5,741 | 592.2 | 1794.1 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 6,111 | 147.3 | 1685.5 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 6,130 | 391.5 | 1663.9 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 6,135 | 244.5 | 1776.7 |
Elsmere Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Elsmere's 124 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 Elsmere in population. Their populations run from 3,793 to 8,117, against 6,135 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Elsmere sits at 244.5/100K violent (grade B); the Delaware cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
In 2024, Elsmere reported 15 violent crimes and 109 property crimes, for a total of 124 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Elsmere's violent crime rate decreased by 37.5%, and the property crime rate increased by 6.8%.
The most common crime type in Elsmere is larceny-theft, accounting for 58.1% of all reported crimes (72 incidents in 2024).
Small-city read: Elsmere 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 Elsmere's small city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Elsmere, DE rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.
Bulk download: city crime dataset (CSV/JSON)
Put this to use
Put the Elsmere, 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. Elsmere is scored as a small-city UCR reporter (6,135 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.