Mountain Lake, MN has a B safety grade (62/100) with a violent crime rate of 363 per 100,000, 3% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · small municipal
Mountain Lake's UCR row covers a small municipal population (1,929). Rates below are per 100,000 and sit next to MN and U.S. averages.
Data updated 2026-08-24
Mountain Lake, MN carries a PlainCrime B safety grade with violent crime 3% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Mountain Lake, MN shows violent crime at 362.9 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 207.4 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 3% above the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade B from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 63.6% of the 11 Part I offenses reported in Mountain Lake for 2024, against a median of 10.6% across comparable Minnesota cities — a gap of 53.1 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
Mountain Lake reported 7 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 1,929. 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.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 197.1 per 100,000 in 2020 to 362.9 in 2024 (+84.1%). The highest observed value was 490.9 in 2021 and the lowest 101.7 in 2023. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Position in the state cohort
At 362.9 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Mountain Lake ranks 23 of 276 — above 253 of the 275 other Minnesota cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +270.9% against the cohort median of 97.8. 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 Mountain Lake's 362.9 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Isle (361.4), Moorhead (365.4), Fosston (365.5), South St. Paul (348.7). 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.
Property-offense composition
Larceny-theft is 75.0% of reported property offenses in Mountain Lake, against a cohort median of 85.7%. The remainder is burglary (1) and motor vehicle theft (0). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Violent counts are the sharper signal on Mountain Lake'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 1,929. 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 1.6 Census sq mi, Mountain Lake logged 2.5 property and 4.3 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Mountain Lake leans on aggravated assault at 45% of reported offenses, with a moderate mix index of 3,223.
Violent offenses are 64% of the municipal total - a violence-heavy book for a small municipal.
Mountain Lake offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (1.6 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 | 362.9 |
| Aggravated Assault | 5 | 259.2 |
| Rape | 2 | 103.7 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
| Robbery | 0 | 0 |
| Property Crime | 4 | 207.4 |
| Larceny-Theft | 3 | 155.5 |
| Burglary | 1 | 51.8 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 0 | 0 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
Lead series · rose across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · fell · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 2,029 | 197.1 | 591.4 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 2,037 | 490.9 | 392.7 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 2,009 | 398.2 | 248.9 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 1,966 | 101.7 | 203.5 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 1,929 | 362.9 | 207.4 |
Mountain Lake Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Mountain Lake's 11 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 Minnesota cities closest to Mountain Lake in population. Their populations run from 1,774 to 1,980, against 1,929 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
In 2024, Mountain Lake reported 7 violent crimes and 4 property crimes, for a total of 11 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Mountain Lake's violent crime rate increased by 256.8%, and the property crime rate increased by 1.9%.
The most common crime type in Mountain Lake is aggravated assault, accounting for 45.5% of all reported crimes (5 incidents in 2024).
Micro-municipal read: Mountain Lake'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 Mountain Lake's small municipal row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Mountain Lake, MN 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. Mountain Lake is scored as a small municipal UCR reporter (1,929 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.