Galesburg, IL has a F safety grade (23/100) with a violent crime rate of 513 per 100,000, 46% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · mid-size city
Galesburg (28,864 people) sits in the mid-size municipal band. This page opens with per-100,000 FBI UCR rates, then IL and national benchmarks.
Data updated 2026-08-24
Galesburg, IL carries a PlainCrime F safety grade with violent crime 46% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Galesburg, IL shows violent crime at 512.7 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 2,965.6 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 46% 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.
Position in the state cohort
At 512.7 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Galesburg ranks 31 of 506 — above 475 of the 505 other Illinois cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +414.5% against the cohort median of 99.7. 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 Galesburg's 512.7 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Fairfield (511.1), Champaign (501.9), Mattoon (528.4), Belleville (532.0). 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 14.7% of the 1,004 Part I offenses reported in Galesburg for 2024, against a median of 11.2% across comparable Illinois cities — a gap of 3.5 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.
2020–2024 direction
Across 3 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 480.2 per 100,000 in 2020 to 512.7 in 2024 (+6.8%). The highest observed value was 512.7 in 2024 and the lowest 273.2 in 2023. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property counts dominate Galesburg'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 17.8 Census sq mi, Galesburg logged 48.2 property and 8.3 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Galesburg's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (59% of 1,004 offenses; mix index 4,107).
Violent offenses are only 15% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Galesburg offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (17.8 sq mi); mix index is HHI x 10,000 on the offense-type shares above. Distinct from the per-100K rates in the hero.
| Offense | Count | Rate /100K |
|---|---|---|
| Property Crime | 856 | 2965.6 |
| Larceny-Theft | 597 | 2068.3 |
| Burglary | 209 | 724.1 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 50 | 173.2 |
| Arson | 3 | 10.4 |
| Violent Crime | 148 | 512.7 |
| Aggravated Assault | 98 | 339.5 |
| Rape | 42 | 145.5 |
| Robbery | 6 | 20.8 |
| Murder | 2 | 6.9 |
The chart omits 2021, 2022 rather than drawing an unsupported zero or partial-coverage dip. The table preserves the year and marks the gap.
Lead series · fell across 3 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · rose · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 29,985 | 480.2 | 3471.7 |
| 2021 | Insufficient reporting | 29,576 | - | - |
| 2022 | Insufficient reporting | 29,425 | - | - |
| 2023 | Comparable | 28,917 | 273.2 | 1971.2 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 28,864 | 512.7 | 2965.6 |
Galesburg Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Galesburg's 1,004 reported offenses (3-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 Illinois cities closest to Galesburg in population. Their populations run from 27,784 to 29,099, against 28,864 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Galesburg sits at 512.7/100K violent (grade F); the Illinois cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Galesburg at 512.7/100K violent and 2,965.6/100K property - matched below outside Illinois (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
512.7/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
2,965.6/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
Out-of-state cities whose violent rate moved a similar share from 2023→2024 (+87.7% here); level-based peers above are excluded.
In 2024, Galesburg reported 148 violent crimes and 856 property crimes, for a total of 1,004 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Galesburg's violent crime rate increased by 87.7%, and the property crime rate increased by 50.4%.
The most common crime type in Galesburg is larceny-theft, accounting for 59.5% of all reported crimes (597 incidents in 2024).
Mid-size read: Galesburg 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 Galesburg's mid-size city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Galesburg, IL 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. Galesburg is scored in the mid-size municipal band (28,864 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.