Houston, MO has a F safety grade (12/100) with a violent crime rate of 585 per 100,000, 66% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · small municipal
Houston's UCR row covers a small municipal population (2,221). Rates below are per 100,000 and sit next to MO and U.S. averages.
Data updated 2026-09-05
Houston, MO is among the highest-crime cities in the country, and earns an F PlainCrime safety grade, where violent crime runs 66% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Houston, MO shows violent crime at 585.3 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 4,592.5 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 66% 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.
Small-count caution
Houston reported 13 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 2,221. 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 585.3 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Houston ranks 35 of 272 — above 237 of the 271 other Missouri cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +217.5% against the cohort median of 184.3. 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 Houston's 585.3 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Sullivan (588.2), Malden (576.7), Hillsdale (597.8), Branson West (598.8). 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
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 672.8 per 100,000 in 2020 to 585.3 in 2024 (-13.0%). The highest observed value was 823.0 in 2022 and the lowest 498.4 in 2023. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property-offense composition
Larceny-theft is 89.2% of reported property offenses in Houston, against a cohort median of 78.6%. The remainder is burglary (8) and motor vehicle theft (3). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Property counts dominate Houston'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 13 reported violent incidents in a population of 2,221. 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 3.6 Census sq mi, Houston logged 28 property and 3.6 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Houston's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (79% of 115 offenses; mix index 6,384).
Violent offenses are only 11% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Houston offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (3.6 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 | 102 | 4592.5 |
| Larceny-Theft | 91 | 4097.3 |
| Burglary | 8 | 360.2 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 3 | 135.1 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 13 | 585.3 |
| Aggravated Assault | 8 | 360.2 |
| Rape | 5 | 225.1 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
| Robbery | 0 | 0 |
Lead series · fell across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · fell · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 2,081 | 672.8 | 5862.6 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 2,085 | 575.5 | 5227.8 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 2,187 | 823 | 5487 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 2,207 | 498.4 | 5482.6 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 2,221 | 585.3 | 4592.5 |
Houston Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Houston's 115 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.
Crime rates read differently at different scales, so these are the Missouri cities closest to Houston in population. Their populations run from 2,187 to 2,336, against 2,221 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Houston sits at 585.3/100K violent (grade F); the Missouri cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
In 2024, Houston reported 13 violent crimes and 102 property crimes, for a total of 115 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Houston's violent crime rate increased by 17.4%, and the property crime rate decreased by 16.2%.
The most common crime type in Houston is larceny-theft, accounting for 79.1% of all reported crimes (91 incidents in 2024).
Micro-municipal read: Houston'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 Houston's small municipal row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Houston, MO rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.
Bulk download: city crime dataset (CSV/JSON)
Put this to use
Put the Houston, MO FBI UCR record to work: compare peers, open the state atlas, or look up another city.
A citywide UCR rate is a starting point, not a neighbourhood verdict: read the full profile and the year coverage notes before drawing conclusions.
Every figure on PlainCrime is rendered directly from FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) source data, no number is typed in by an editor. Houston is scored as a small municipal UCR reporter (2,221 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.