Heron Lake, MN has a A+ safety grade (97/100) with a violent crime rate of 0 per 100,000, .
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · small municipal
Heron Lake's UCR row covers a small municipal population (587). Rates below are per 100,000 and sit next to MN and U.S. averages.
Data updated 2026-08-24
Heron Lake, MN FBI UCR crime rates and PlainCrime safety grade
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Heron Lake, MN shows violent crime at 0 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 340.7 per 100,000. PlainCrime assigns grade A+ from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
Small-count caution
Heron Lake reported 0 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 587. 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.
Position in the state cohort
At 0.0 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Heron Lake ranks 213 of 276 — above 0 of the 275 other Minnesota cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is -100.0% against the cohort median of 98.8. 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 Heron Lake's 0.0 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Ada (0.0), Adrian (0.0), Akeley (0.0), Arlington (0.0). 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 0.0% of the 2 Part I offenses reported in Heron Lake for 2024, against a median of 10.6% across comparable Minnesota cities — a gap of 10.6 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-offense composition
Larceny-theft is 100.0% of reported property offenses in Heron Lake, against a cohort median of 85.6%. The remainder is burglary (0) and motor vehicle theft (0). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Property counts dominate Heron Lake'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 0 reported violent incidents in a population of 587. 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.
On a small municipal row, small denominators make rates sensitive to a handful of incidents. Figures are reported totals, not neighbourhood advice.
Across 1.2 Census sq mi, Heron Lake logged 1.6 property and 0 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Heron Lake's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (100% of 2 offenses; mix index 10,000).
Violent offenses are only 0% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (1.2 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 | 2 | 340.7 |
| Larceny-Theft | 2 | 340.7 |
| Burglary | 0 | 0 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 0 | 0 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 0 | 0 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
| Rape | 0 | 0 |
| Robbery | 0 | 0 |
| Aggravated Assault | 0 | 0 |
Crime rates read differently at different scales, so these are the Minnesota cities closest to Heron Lake in population. Their populations run from 524 to 657, against 587 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
In 2024, Heron Lake reported 0 violent crimes and 2 property crimes, for a total of 2 reported offenses.
The most common crime type in Heron Lake is larceny-theft, accounting for 100.0% of all reported crimes (2 incidents in 2024).
Micro-municipal read: Heron Lake's FBI UCR Table 8 row (2024) is the only source for the rates above.
With a small population base, per-100,000 rates amplify sparse counts. Incomplete submissions are excluded from rankings. See FBI.gov UCR for the raw Table 8 file.
Disclaimer (small municipal): small-base rates are especially easy to misread. Informational only - not advice. Source: FBI UCR Program.
Micro-municipal rate methodology for how Heron Lake's small municipal row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Heron Lake, MN 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. Heron Lake is scored as a small municipal UCR reporter (587 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.