Ferndale, MI has a B safety grade (66/100) with a violent crime rate of 205 per 100,000, 42% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · mid-size city
Ferndale (19,041 people) sits in the mid-size municipal band. This page opens with per-100,000 FBI UCR rates, then MI and national benchmarks.
Data updated 2026-08-24
Ferndale, MI carries a PlainCrime B safety grade with violent crime 42% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Ferndale, MI shows violent crime at 204.8 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 1,528.3 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 42% 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.
Comparable rate records
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Ferndale's 204.8 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Clio (203.7), Hazel Park (203.2), Riverview (203.0), Ironwood (202.7). 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.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 249.4 per 100,000 in 2020 to 204.8 in 2024 (-17.9%). The highest observed value was 281.2 in 2023 and the lowest 133.5 in 2021. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property-offense composition
Larceny-theft is 66.0% of reported property offenses in Ferndale, against a cohort median of 79.7%. The remainder is burglary (32) and motor vehicle theft (67). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 11.8% of the 330 Part I offenses reported in Ferndale for 2024, against a median of 16.8% across comparable Michigan cities — a gap of 5.0 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.
Position in the state cohort
At 204.8 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Ferndale ranks 170 of 366 — above 196 of the 365 other Michigan cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +9.6% against the cohort median of 187.0. 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 Ferndale'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 3.9 Census sq mi, Ferndale logged 75.1 property and 10.1 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Ferndale leans on larceny-theft at 58% of reported offenses, with a moderate mix index of 3,973.
Violent offenses are only 12% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Ferndale offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (3.9 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 | 291 | 1528.3 |
| Larceny-Theft | 192 | 1008.4 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 67 | 351.9 |
| Burglary | 32 | 168.1 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 39 | 204.8 |
| Aggravated Assault | 29 | 152.3 |
| Rape | 5 | 26.3 |
| Robbery | 5 | 26.3 |
| Murder | 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 | 20,048 | 249.4 | 1551.3 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 20,228 | 133.5 | 1547.4 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 19,007 | 268.3 | 2062.4 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 18,850 | 281.2 | 2222.8 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 19,041 | 204.8 | 1528.3 |
Ferndale Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Ferndale's 330 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 Michigan cities closest to Ferndale in population. Their populations run from 19,021 to 20,306, against 19,041 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Ferndale sits at 204.8/100K violent (grade B); the Michigan cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Ferndale at 204.8/100K violent and 1,528.3/100K property - matched below outside Michigan (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
204.8/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
1,528.3/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
In 2024, Ferndale reported 39 violent crimes and 291 property crimes, for a total of 330 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Ferndale's violent crime rate decreased by 27.2%, and the property crime rate decreased by 31.2%.
The most common crime type in Ferndale is larceny-theft, accounting for 58.2% of all reported crimes (192 incidents in 2024).
Mid-size read: Ferndale 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 Ferndale's mid-size city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Ferndale, MI 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. Ferndale is scored in the mid-size municipal band (19,041 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.