Fort Wayne, IN has a C safety grade (50/100) with a violent crime rate of 308 per 100,000, 13% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · very large city
Fort Wayne, IN Crime Rate & Safety
At 271,892 residents, Fort Wayne is a very large city: FBI UCR Table 8 rates (per 100,000) here are read against IN and U.S. averages before the offense-family breakdown.
Fort Wayne, IN carries a PlainCrime C safety grade with violent crime 13% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Fort Wayne, IN shows violent crime at 307.5 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 2,223.7 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 13% below 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.
C safety grade
307.5/100K violent
2223.7/100K property
-13% vs U.S.
What the 2024 FBI UCR record shows for Fort Wayne, IN
Comparable rate records
Fort Wayne's closest reported-rate comparisons are in the Indiana cohort
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Fort Wayne's 307.5 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Milford (311.7), Lawrence (292.7), Jeffersonville (322.4), Michigan City (291.7). 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.
Position in the state cohort
Fort Wayne reported a higher violent-crime rate than most comparable Indiana cities
At 307.5 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Fort Wayne ranks 24 of 113 — above 89 of the 112 other Indiana cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +98.0% against the cohort median of 155.3. Cities that did not report, or that reported implausibly low totals, are excluded from this cohort rather than counted as low-crime.
2020–2024 direction
The reported violent-crime rate ended the window lower
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 413.2 per 100,000 in 2020 to 307.5 in 2024 (-25.6%). The highest observed value was 413.2 in 2020 and the lowest 257.4 in 2021. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property counts dominate Fort Wayne'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.
On a very large city row, these are citywide reported offense totals - not neighbourhood advice. Conditions vary by place and time; reporting rates differ across jurisdictions.
Fort Wayne's 2024 municipal footprint
Across 111.8 Census sq mi, Fort Wayne logged 54.1 property and 7.5 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Fort Wayne's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (69% of 6,882 offenses; mix index 4,987).
Violent offenses are only 12% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (111.8 sq mi); mix index is HHI x 10,000 on the offense-type shares above. Distinct from the per-100K rates in the hero.
Violent rate moved most (2023→2024)
Violent Crime Rate
+13.3%
271.4 → 307.5/100K
Property Crime Rate
-6.4%
2375 → 2223.7/100K
Property offenses lead Fort Wayne's 2024 record
Offense
Count
Rate /100K
vs IN
Property Crime
6,046
2223.7
1321
Larceny-Theft
4,735
1741.5
-
Motor Vehicle Theft
720
264.8
-
Burglary
591
217.4
-
Arson
55
20.2
-
Violent Crime
836
307.5
308.5
Aggravated Assault
541
199
-
Robbery
149
54.8
-
Rape
116
42.7
-
Murder
30
11
-
Fort Wayne Crime Trend (2020-2024)
Fort Wayne property crime rate trend
Lead series · fell across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program · split lines are the U.S. national averages
Fort Wayne Police Department
Reporting agency for Fort Wayne NIBRS-participating
Fort Wayne Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Fort Wayne's 6,882 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.
Similar-Size Cities in Indiana
Crime rates read differently at different scales, so these are the Indiana cities closest to Fort Wayne in population. Their populations run from 71,374 to 114,660, against 271,892 here. Or use our
side-by-side compare tool
to benchmark two cities directly.
Fort Wayne at 307.5/100K violent and 2,223.7/100K property - matched below outside Indiana (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
In 2024, Fort Wayne reported 836 violent crimes and 6,046 property crimes, for a total of 6,882 reported offenses.
Is crime increasing or decreasing in Fort Wayne?
From 2023 to 2024, Fort Wayne's violent crime rate increased by 13.3%, and the property crime rate decreased by 6.4%.
What is the most common crime in Fort Wayne?
The most common crime type in Fort Wayne is larceny-theft, accounting for 68.8% of all reported crimes (4,735 incidents in 2024).
Large-city read: Fort Wayne's rates come from the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, CIUS Table 8, vintage 2024.
Incomplete reporters stay out of rate rankings. Cross-check population with Census ACS; state UCR programs for statewide context. Primary verify links: FBI.gov UCR, Census QuickFacts.
Disclaimer (very large city): informational crime rates only - not legal, insurance, or personal-safety advice. Source: FBI UCR. Ask a qualified professional before acting.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Fort Wayne, IN rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.