Saginaw, MI has a F safety grade (13/100) with a violent crime rate of 2202 per 100,000, 525% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · mid-size city
Saginaw (42,880 people) sits in the mid-size municipal band. This page opens with per-100,000 FBI UCR rates, then MI and national benchmarks.
Data updated 2026-09-05
Saginaw, MI is among the highest-crime cities in the country, and earns an F PlainCrime safety grade, where violent crime runs 525% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Saginaw, MI shows violent crime at 2,201.5 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 1,959 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 525% above the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade F from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 52.9% of the 1,784 Part I offenses reported in Saginaw for 2024, against a median of 16.7% across comparable Michigan cities — a gap of 36.2 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.
Position in the state cohort
At 2201.5 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Saginaw ranks 2 of 366 — above 364 of the 365 other Michigan cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +1077.5% against the cohort median of 187.0. 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 Saginaw's 2201.5 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Vassar (1971.7), Benton Township (1880.3), Benton Harbor (1874.1), Detroit (1781.3). 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 57.6% of reported property offenses in Saginaw, against a cohort median of 79.7%. The remainder is burglary (230) and motor vehicle theft (126). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 2156.3 per 100,000 in 2020 to 2201.5 in 2024 (+2.1%). The highest observed value was 2304.1 in 2021 and the lowest 2123.7 in 2022. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Saginaw'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.
Mid-size municipal totals above are reported offenses, not safety advice for any single block. Reporting completeness still varies by year and agency.
Across 17.1 Census sq mi, Saginaw logged 49.1 property and 55.2 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Saginaw leans on aggravated assault at 45% of reported offenses, with a moderate mix index of 3,038.
Violent offenses are 53% of the municipal total - a violence-heavy book for a mid-size city.
Saginaw offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (17.1 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Violent Crime | 944 | 2201.5 |
| Aggravated Assault | 810 | 1889 |
| Robbery | 58 | 135.3 |
| Rape | 57 | 132.9 |
| Murder | 19 | 44.3 |
| Property Crime | 840 | 1959 |
| Larceny-Theft | 484 | 1128.7 |
| Burglary | 230 | 536.4 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 126 | 293.8 |
| Arson | 27 | 63 |
Lead series · rose across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · rose · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 47,767 | 2156.3 | 1607.8 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 47,480 | 2304.1 | 1621.7 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 43,651 | 2123.7 | 2148.9 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 43,163 | 2263.5 | 2309.8 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 42,880 | 2201.5 | 1959 |
Saginaw Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Saginaw's 1,784 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 Michigan cities closest to Saginaw in population. Their populations run from 39,244 to 46,358, against 42,880 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Saginaw sits at 2,201.5/100K violent (grade F); the Michigan cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Saginaw at 2,201.5/100K violent and 1,959/100K property - matched below outside Michigan (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
2,201.5/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
1,959/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
Out-of-state cities whose violent rate moved a similar share from 2023→2024 (-2.7% here); level-based peers above are excluded.
In 2024, Saginaw reported 944 violent crimes and 840 property crimes, for a total of 1,784 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Saginaw's violent crime rate decreased by 2.7%, and the property crime rate decreased by 15.2%.
The most common crime type in Saginaw is aggravated assault, accounting for 45.4% of all reported crimes (810 incidents in 2024).
Mid-size read: Saginaw 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 Saginaw's mid-size city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Saginaw, MI rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.
Bulk download: city crime dataset (CSV/JSON)
Put this to use
Put the Saginaw, MI 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. Saginaw is scored in the mid-size municipal band (42,880 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.