Lake Helen, FL has a A safety grade (75/100) with a violent crime rate of 233 per 100,000, 34% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · small city
Lake Helen is a small municipal reporter (3,005 on the UCR row). Per-100,000 violent and property rates are shown with FL and U.S. context.
Data updated 2026-09-05
Lake Helen, FL is higher-crime than most U.S. cities, and earns an A PlainCrime safety grade, where violent crime runs 34% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Lake Helen, FL shows violent crime at 232.9 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 166.4 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 34% 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.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 58.3% of the 12 Part I offenses reported in Lake Helen for 2024, against a median of 13.3% across comparable Florida cities — a gap of 45.1 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.
Small-count caution
Lake Helen reported 7 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 3,005. 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.
Property-offense composition
Larceny-theft is 40.0% of reported property offenses in Lake Helen, against a cohort median of 81.8%. The remainder is burglary (3) and motor vehicle theft (0). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Comparable rate records
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Lake Helen's 232.9 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Pinellas Park (233.7), Winter Haven (235.5), Tarpon Springs (237.4), Longwood (242.8). 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 283.5 per 100,000 in 2020 to 232.9 in 2024 (-17.8%). The highest observed value was 283.5 in 2020 and the lowest 0.0 in 2021. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Position in the state cohort
At 232.9 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Lake Helen ranks 58 of 126 — above 68 of the 125 other Florida cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +20.9% against the cohort median of 192.7. Cities that did not report, or that reported implausibly low totals, are excluded from this cohort rather than counted as low-crime.
Violent counts are the sharper signal on Lake Helen's FBI UCR Table 8 municipal row. Per-100,000 rates use the reporting-year population on that row; incomplete reporters stay out of rate rankings. A citywide figure rarely describes any single neighbourhood inside the municipal boundary.
Based on 7 reported violent incidents in a population of 3,005. 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.
Small-city offense counts above are voluntary UCR submissions, not neighbourhood advice. Year-to-year swings can look large when the population base is modest.
Across 4.6 Census sq mi, Lake Helen logged 1.1 property and 1.5 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Lake Helen's 2024 book concentrates in aggravated assault (58% of 12 offenses; mix index 4,306).
Violent offenses are 58% of the municipal total - a violence-heavy book for a small city.
Lake Helen offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (4.6 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Violent Crime | 7 | 232.9 |
| Aggravated Assault | 7 | 232.9 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
| Rape | 0 | 0 |
| Robbery | 0 | 0 |
| Property Crime | 5 | 166.4 |
| Burglary | 3 | 99.8 |
| Larceny-Theft | 2 | 66.6 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 0 | 0 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
The chart omits 2021 rather than drawing an unsupported zero or partial-coverage dip. The table preserves the year and marks the gap.
Lead series · fell across 4 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · fell · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 2,822 | 283.5 | 531.5 |
| 2021 | Insufficient reporting | 2,846 | - | - |
| 2022 | Comparable | 2,867 | 209.3 | 523.2 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 2,961 | 101.3 | 371.5 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 3,005 | 232.9 | 166.4 |
Lake Helen Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Lake Helen's 12 reported offenses (4-year span 2020-2024, with internal gaps).
This agency reports via the traditional Summary Reporting System (SRS): aggregate monthly offense counts rather than incident-level detail.
Crime rates read differently at different scales, so these are the Florida cities closest to Lake Helen in population. Their populations run from 2,275 to 3,629, against 3,005 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
In 2024, Lake Helen reported 7 violent crimes and 5 property crimes, for a total of 12 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Lake Helen's violent crime rate increased by 129.9%, and the property crime rate decreased by 55.2%.
The most common crime type in Lake Helen is aggravated assault, accounting for 58.3% of all reported crimes (7 incidents in 2024).
Small-city read: Lake Helen is sourced from FBI UCR Table 8 for 2024; rates use that row's population.
Small-city rows use the same per-100,000 formula; a few unreported years can leave gaps in the trend table. Verify the agency's submission on FBI.gov UCR.
Disclaimer (small city): UCR counts here are informational only. They are not a victimization probability. Source: FBI UCR Program.
Small-city rate methodology for how Lake Helen's small city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Lake Helen, FL rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.
Bulk download: city crime dataset (CSV/JSON)
Put this to use
Put the Lake Helen, FL 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. Lake Helen is scored as a small-city UCR reporter (3,005 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.