Harlingen, TX has a C safety grade (51/100) with a violent crime rate of 258 per 100,000, 27% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · large city
Harlingen, TX Crime Rate & Safety
At 71,388 residents, Harlingen is a large city: FBI UCR Table 8 rates (per 100,000) here are read against TX and U.S. averages before the offense-family breakdown.
Harlingen, TX carries a PlainCrime C safety grade with violent crime 27% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Harlingen, TX shows violent crime at 257.7 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 2,718.9 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 27% 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
257.7/100K violent
2718.9/100K property
-27% vs U.S.
What the 2024 FBI UCR record shows for Harlingen, TX
Comparable rate records
Harlingen's closest reported-rate comparisons are in the Texas cohort
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Harlingen's 257.7 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Newton (257.9), Universal City (258.4), Saginaw (258.5), White Settlement (256.7). 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
The reported violent-crime rate ended the window lower
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 421.4 per 100,000 in 2020 to 257.7 in 2024 (-38.8%). The highest observed value was 421.4 in 2020 and the lowest 257.7 in 2024. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Position in the state cohort
Harlingen sits mid-pack among comparable Texas cities
At 257.7 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Harlingen ranks 235 of 686 — above 451 of the 685 other Texas cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +44.0% against the cohort median of 178.9. Cities that did not report, or that reported implausibly low totals, are excluded from this cohort rather than counted as low-crime.
Offense mix
The reported mix leans further toward property offenses than the state cohort
Violent offenses are 8.7% of the 2,125 Part I offenses reported in Harlingen for 2024, against a median of 14.4% across comparable Texas cities — a gap of 5.7 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 Harlingen'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 large city row, these are citywide reported offense totals - not neighbourhood advice. Conditions vary by place and time; reporting rates differ across jurisdictions.
Harlingen's 2024 municipal footprint
Across 40.3 Census sq mi, Harlingen logged 48.2 property and 4.6 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Harlingen's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (69% of 2,125 offenses; mix index 5,107).
Violent offenses are only 9% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (40.3 sq mi); mix index is HHI x 10,000 on the offense-type shares above. Distinct from the per-100K rates in the hero.
Violent rate moved most (2023→2024)
Violent Crime Rate
-18.7%
317.1 → 257.7/100K
Property Crime Rate
-3%
2803.8 → 2718.9/100K
Property offenses lead Harlingen's 2024 record
Offense
Count
Rate /100K
vs US avg
Property Crime
1,941
2718.9
1711
Larceny-Theft
1,475
2066.2
-
Burglary
246
344.6
-
Motor Vehicle Theft
220
308.2
-
Arson
12
16.8
-
Violent Crime
184
257.7
352
Aggravated Assault
143
200.3
-
Robbery
29
40.6
-
Rape
11
15.4
-
Murder
1
1.4
-
Harlingen Crime Trend (2020-2024)
Harlingen 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
Harlingen Police Department
Reporting agency for Harlingen NIBRS-participating
Harlingen Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Harlingen's 2,125 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 Texas
Crime rates read differently at different scales, so these are the Texas cities closest to Harlingen in population. Their populations run from 65,243 to 77,571, against 71,388 here. Or use our
side-by-side compare tool
to benchmark two cities directly.
In 2024, Harlingen reported 184 violent crimes and 1,941 property crimes, for a total of 2,125 reported offenses.
Is crime increasing or decreasing in Harlingen?
From 2023 to 2024, Harlingen's violent crime rate decreased by 18.7%, and the property crime rate decreased by 3%.
What is the most common crime in Harlingen?
The most common crime type in Harlingen is larceny-theft, accounting for 69.4% of all reported crimes (1,475 incidents in 2024).
Large-city read: Harlingen'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 (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 Harlingen, TX rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.