Lake Forest, IL has a A+ safety grade (92/100) with a violent crime rate of 21 per 100,000, 94% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · mid-size city
Lake Forest (19,357 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
Lake Forest, IL carries a PlainCrime A+ safety grade with violent crime 94% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Lake Forest, IL shows violent crime at 20.7 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 625.1 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 94% 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.
Small-count caution
Lake Forest reported 4 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 19,357. 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 Lake Forest's 20.7 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Buffalo Grove (21.3), Itasca (21.5), Wonder Lake (19.1), Wilmette (22.5). 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 20.7 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Lake Forest ranks 403 of 506 — above 103 of the 505 other Illinois cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is -79.5% 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.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 30.8 per 100,000 in 2020 to 20.7 in 2024 (-33.0%). The highest observed value was 52.1 in 2023 and the lowest 15.5 in 2021. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 3.2% of the 125 Part I offenses reported in Lake Forest for 2024, against a median of 11.3% across comparable Illinois cities — a gap of 8.1 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 57.9% of reported property offenses in Lake Forest, against a cohort median of 70.3%. The remainder is burglary (40) and motor vehicle theft (11). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Property counts dominate Lake Forest'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 4 reported violent incidents in a population of 19,357. 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 17.2 Census sq mi, Lake Forest logged 7 property and 0.2 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Lake Forest's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (56% of 125 offenses; mix index 4,244).
Violent offenses are only 3% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Lake Forest offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (17.2 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 | 121 | 625.1 |
| Larceny-Theft | 70 | 361.6 |
| Burglary | 40 | 206.6 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 11 | 56.8 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 4 | 20.7 |
| Aggravated Assault | 3 | 15.5 |
| Rape | 1 | 5.2 |
| 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 | 19,452 | 30.8 | 1866.1 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 19,378 | 15.5 | 485.1 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 19,201 | 15.6 | 677 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 19,205 | 52.1 | 692.5 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 19,357 | 20.7 | 625.1 |
Lake Forest Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Lake Forest's 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.
Crime rates read differently at different scales, so these are the Illinois cities closest to Lake Forest in population. Their populations run from 18,718 to 19,726, against 19,357 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Lake Forest sits at 20.7/100K violent (grade A+); the Illinois cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Lake Forest at 20.7/100K violent and 625.1/100K property - matched below outside Illinois (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
20.7/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
625.1/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
In 2024, Lake Forest reported 4 violent crimes and 121 property crimes, for a total of 125 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Lake Forest's violent crime rate decreased by 60.3%, and the property crime rate decreased by 9.7%.
The most common crime type in Lake Forest is larceny-theft, accounting for 56.0% of all reported crimes (70 incidents in 2024).
Mid-size read: Lake Forest 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 Lake Forest's mid-size city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Lake Forest, 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. Lake Forest is scored in the mid-size municipal band (19,357 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.