New Buffalo, MI has a A+ safety grade (94/100) with a violent crime rate of 59 per 100,000, 83% below the national average.
New Buffalo's UCR row covers a small municipal population (1,688). Rates below are per 100,000 and sit next to MI and U.S. averages.
New Buffalo, MI carries a PlainCrime A+ safety grade with violent crime 83% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, New Buffalo, MI shows violent crime at 59.2 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 59.2 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 83% 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.
The verdict
New Buffalo earns an A+ safety grade: violent crime runs 83% below the U.S. average, placing it safer than most U.S. cities.
Based on 1 reported violent incidents in a population of 1,688. 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-count caution
New Buffalo reported 1 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 1,688. 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.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 50.0% of the 2 Part I offenses reported in New Buffalo for 2024, against a median of 16.7% across comparable Michigan cities — a gap of 33.3 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
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 160.8 per 100,000 in 2020 to 59.2 in 2024 (-63.2%). The highest observed value was 160.8 in 2020 and the lowest 0.0 in 2023. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Comparable rate records
The nearest comparable 2024 records to New Buffalo's 59.2 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Sylvan Lake (58.9), Allegan (58.3), South Lyon (58.3), Armada (60.2). 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 59.2 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, New Buffalo ranks 290 of 366 — above 76 of the 365 other Michigan cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is -68.5% against the cohort median of 188.3. 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
Larceny-theft is 100.0% of reported property offenses in New Buffalo, against a cohort median of 79.7%. The remainder is burglary (0) and motor vehicle theft (0). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
New Buffalo's FBI UCR Table 8 municipal row keeps violent and property totals in a closer balance. 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 1 reported violent incidents in a population of 1,688. 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.
| Offense | Count | Rate /100K |
|---|---|---|
| Property Crime | 1 | 59.2 |
| Larceny-Theft | 1 | 59.2 |
| Burglary | 0 | 0 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 0 | 0 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 1 | 59.2 |
| Murder | 1 | 59.2 |
| Rape | 0 | 0 |
| Robbery | 0 | 0 |
| Aggravated Assault | 0 | 0 |
Secondary series · fell · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
Lead series · fell across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 1,866 | 160.8 | 1393.4 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 1,863 | 53.7 | 1180.9 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 1,680 | 119 | 833.3 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 1,691 | 0 | 1182.7 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 1,688 | 59.2 | 59.2 |
New Buffalo's crime figures on this page originate from New Buffalo Police Department's submission to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Program.
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 Michigan cities closest to New Buffalo in population. Their populations run from 1,616 to 1,783, against 1,688 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
These Michigan cities report the closest violent-crime rates to New Buffalo's 59.2/100K (same FBI UCR vintage rules; size peers above are excluded so the two lists stay distinct).
Micro-municipal read: New Buffalo'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 New Buffalo's small municipal row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 New Buffalo, MI 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. New Buffalo is scored as a small municipal UCR reporter (1,688 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.