Norfolk, NE has a B safety grade (70/100) with a violent crime rate of 202 per 100,000, 43% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · mid-size city
Norfolk (26,234 people) sits in the mid-size municipal band. This page opens with per-100,000 FBI UCR rates, then NE and national benchmarks.
Data updated 2026-08-24
Norfolk, NE carries a PlainCrime B safety grade with violent crime 43% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Norfolk, NE shows violent crime at 202 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 1,143.6 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 43% below 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.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 118.5 per 100,000 in 2020 to 202.0 in 2024 (+70.4%). The highest observed value was 202.0 in 2024 and the lowest 95.8 in 2022. 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 Norfolk's 202.0 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Crete (201.0), York (194.6), Chadron (214.3), South Sioux City (181.1). 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 202.0 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Norfolk ranks 12 of 47 — above 35 of the 46 other Nebraska cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +62.6% against the cohort median of 124.3. Cities that did not report, or that reported implausibly low totals, are excluded from this cohort rather than counted as low-crime.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 15.0% of the 353 Part I offenses reported in Norfolk for 2024, against a median of 10.7% across comparable Nebraska cities — a gap of 4.3 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.
Property counts dominate Norfolk'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.
Across 18.1 Census sq mi, Norfolk logged 16.5 property and 2.9 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Norfolk's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (74% of 353 offenses; mix index 5,684).
Violent offenses are 15% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
Norfolk offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (18.1 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 | 300 | 1143.6 |
| Larceny-Theft | 262 | 998.7 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 20 | 76.2 |
| Burglary | 18 | 68.6 |
| Arson | 2 | 7.6 |
| Violent Crime | 53 | 202 |
| Aggravated Assault | 35 | 133.4 |
| Rape | 15 | 57.2 |
| Robbery | 3 | 11.4 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
Lead series · fell across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · rose · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 24,467 | 118.5 | 1328.3 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 24,370 | 106.7 | 882.2 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 25,048 | 95.8 | 830.4 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 25,951 | 104 | 851.6 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 26,234 | 202 | 1143.6 |
Norfolk Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Norfolk's 353 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 Nebraska cities closest to Norfolk in population. Their populations run from 15,306 to 34,525, against 26,234 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Norfolk sits at 202/100K violent (grade B); the Nebraska cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Norfolk at 202/100K violent and 1,143.6/100K property - matched below outside Nebraska (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
202/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
1,143.6/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
Out-of-state cities whose violent rate moved a similar share from 2023→2024 (+94.2% here); level-based peers above are excluded.
In 2024, Norfolk reported 53 violent crimes and 300 property crimes, for a total of 353 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Norfolk's violent crime rate increased by 94.2%, and the property crime rate increased by 34.3%.
The most common crime type in Norfolk is larceny-theft, accounting for 74.2% of all reported crimes (262 incidents in 2024).
Mid-size read: Norfolk 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 Norfolk's mid-size city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Norfolk, NE 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. Norfolk is scored in the mid-size municipal band (26,234 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.