Melrose Park, IL carries a PlainCrime C safety grade with violent crime 14% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Melrose Park, IL shows violent crime at 304.4 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 1,770.5 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 14% below the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade C from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
C safety grade
304.4/100K violent
1770.5/100K property
-14% vs U.S.
What the 2024 FBI UCR record shows for Melrose Park, IL
Comparable rate records
Melrose Park's closest reported-rate comparisons are in the Illinois cohort
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Melrose Park's 304.4 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Jacksonville (303.7), Potomac (303.5), Bellwood (306.4), University Park (301.7). 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
Melrose Park reported a higher violent-crime rate than most comparable Illinois cities
At 304.4 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Melrose Park ranks 87 of 506 — above 419 of the 505 other Illinois cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +205.4% against the cohort median of 99.7. 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
Burglary and vehicle theft carry more of the property total than they do across the cohort
Larceny-theft is 61.0% of reported property offenses in Melrose Park, against a cohort median of 70.3%. The remainder is burglary (95) and motor vehicle theft (66). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Offense mix
Violent offenses make up an unusually large share of the reported mix
Violent offenses are 14.7% of the 484 Part I offenses reported in Melrose Park for 2024, against a median of 11.2% across comparable Illinois cities — a gap of 3.5 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.
2020–2024 direction
The reported violent-crime rate ended the window lower
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 333.0 per 100,000 in 2020 to 304.4 in 2024 (-8.6%). The highest observed value was 333.0 in 2020 and the lowest 268.2 in 2023. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property counts dominate Melrose 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.
Mid-size municipal totals above are reported offenses, not safety advice for any single block. Reporting completeness still varies by year and agency.
Melrose Park's 2024 municipal footprint
Across 4.4 Census sq mi, Melrose Park logged 94.9 property and 16.3 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Melrose Park leans on larceny-theft at 52% of reported offenses, with a moderate mix index of 3,382.
Violent offenses are only 15% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (4.4 sq mi); mix index is HHI x 10,000 on the offense-type shares above. Distinct from the per-100K rates in the hero.
Property rate moved most (2023→2024)
Property Crime Rate
+18.8%
1489.7 → 1770.5/100K
Violent Crime Rate
+13.5%
268.2 → 304.4/100K
Property offenses lead Melrose Park's 2024 record
Offense
Count
Rate /100K
vs IL
Property Crime
413
1770.5
1664.8
Larceny-Theft
252
1080.3
-
Burglary
95
407.3
-
Motor Vehicle Theft
66
282.9
-
Arson
4
17.1
-
Violent Crime
71
304.4
277.5
Aggravated Assault
45
192.9
-
Robbery
14
60
-
Rape
10
42.9
-
Murder
2
8.6
-
Melrose Park Crime Trend (2020-2024)
Melrose Park property crime rate trend
Lead series · rose across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program · split lines are the U.S. national averages
Melrose Park Police Department
Reporting agency for Melrose Park NIBRS-participating
Melrose Park Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Melrose Park's 484 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.
Similar-Size Cities in Illinois
Crime rates read differently at different scales, so these are the Illinois cities closest to Melrose Park in population. Their populations run from 22,888 to 23,785, against 23,327 here. Or use our
side-by-side compare tool
to benchmark two cities directly.
Melrose Park at 304.4/100K violent and 1,770.5/100K property - matched below outside Illinois (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
In 2024, Melrose Park reported 71 violent crimes and 413 property crimes, for a total of 484 reported offenses.
Is crime increasing or decreasing in Melrose Park?
From 2023 to 2024, Melrose Park's violent crime rate increased by 13.5%, and the property crime rate increased by 18.8%.
What is the most common crime in Melrose Park?
The most common crime type in Melrose Park is larceny-theft, accounting for 52.1% of all reported crimes (252 incidents in 2024).
Mid-size read: Melrose 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.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Melrose Park, IL rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.