Highland Park, IL has a A safety grade (88/100) with a violent crime rate of 50 per 100,000, 86% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · mid-size city
Highland Park (30,311 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
Highland Park, IL carries a PlainCrime A safety grade with violent crime 86% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Highland Park, IL shows violent crime at 49.5 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 811.6 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 86% below the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade A from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 3.4 per 100,000 in 2020 to 49.5 in 2024 (+1359.1%). The highest observed value was 92.8 in 2022 and the lowest 3.4 in 2020. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Small-count caution
Highland Park reported 15 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 30,311. 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.
Comparable rate records
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Highland Park's 49.5 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Dwight (49.6), Wheaton (49.4), Glen Ellyn (49.7), Barrington Hills (50.1). 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
At 49.5 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Highland Park ranks 354 of 506 — above 152 of the 505 other Illinois cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is -50.9% against the cohort median of 100.7. Cities that did not report, or that reported implausibly low totals, are excluded from this cohort rather than counted as low-crime.
Property-offense composition
Larceny-theft is 82.9% of reported property offenses in Highland Park, against a cohort median of 70.2%. The remainder is burglary (21) and motor vehicle theft (21). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 5.7% of the 261 Part I offenses reported in Highland Park for 2024, against a median of 11.3% across comparable Illinois cities — a gap of 5.5 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.
Property counts dominate Highland Park'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 15 reported violent incidents in a population of 30,311. 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.
Mid-size municipal totals above are reported offenses, not safety advice for any single block. Reporting completeness still varies by year and agency.
Across 12.2 Census sq mi, Highland Park logged 20.1 property and 1.2 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Highland Park's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (78% of 261 offenses; mix index 6,252).
Violent offenses are only 6% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Highland Park offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (12.2 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 | 246 | 811.6 |
| Larceny-Theft | 204 | 673 |
| Burglary | 21 | 69.3 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 21 | 69.3 |
| Arson | 1 | 3.3 |
| Violent Crime | 15 | 49.5 |
| Aggravated Assault | 7 | 23.1 |
| Rape | 6 | 19.8 |
| Murder | 2 | 6.6 |
| Robbery | 0 | 0 |
The chart omits 2023 rather than drawing an unsupported zero or partial-coverage dip. The table preserves the year and marks the gap.
Lead series · rose across 4 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · rose · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 29,485 | 3.4 | 37.3 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 29,392 | 68 | 677.1 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 30,173 | 92.8 | 1186.5 |
| 2023 | Insufficient reporting | 30,168 | - | - |
| 2024 | Comparable | 30,311 | 49.5 | 811.6 |
Highland Park Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Highland Park's 261 reported offenses (4-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 Highland Park in population. Their populations run from 28,864 to 31,876, against 30,311 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Highland Park sits at 49.5/100K violent (grade A); the Illinois cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Highland Park at 49.5/100K violent and 811.6/100K property - matched below outside Illinois (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
49.5/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
811.6/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
In 2024, Highland Park reported 15 violent crimes and 246 property crimes, for a total of 261 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Highland Park's violent crime rate increased by 148.7%, and the property crime rate increased by 178.2%.
The most common crime type in Highland Park is larceny-theft, accounting for 78.2% of all reported crimes (204 incidents in 2024).
Mid-size read: Highland Park 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 Highland Park's mid-size city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Highland Park, 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. Highland Park is scored in the mid-size municipal band (30,311 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.