South Elgin, IL has a A safety grade (75/100) with a violent crime rate of 188 per 100,000, 46% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · mid-size city
South Elgin (24,420 people) sits in the mid-size municipal band. This page opens with per-100,000 FBI UCR rates, then IL and national benchmarks.
Data updated 2026-08-24
South Elgin, IL carries a PlainCrime A safety grade with violent crime 46% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, South Elgin, IL shows violent crime at 188.4 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 667.5 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 46% 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.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 63.8 per 100,000 in 2020 to 188.4 in 2024 (+195.3%). The highest observed value was 188.4 in 2024 and the lowest 12.0 in 2021. 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 South Elgin's 188.4 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Streator (188.5), Marseilles (189.2), La Grange (187.4), Ottawa (186.9). 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.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 22.0% of the 209 Part I offenses reported in South Elgin for 2024, against a median of 11.2% across comparable Illinois cities — a gap of 10.8 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 188.4 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, South Elgin ranks 157 of 506 — above 349 of the 505 other Illinois cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +89.0% 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 counts dominate South Elgin'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 7.3 Census sq mi, South Elgin logged 22.4 property and 6.3 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
South Elgin leans on larceny-theft at 58% of reported offenses, with a moderate mix index of 3,814.
Violent offenses are 22% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
South Elgin offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (7.3 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 | 163 | 667.5 |
| Larceny-Theft | 121 | 495.5 |
| Burglary | 22 | 90.1 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 20 | 81.9 |
| Arson | 1 | 4.1 |
| Violent Crime | 46 | 188.4 |
| Aggravated Assault | 31 | 126.9 |
| Rape | 13 | 53.2 |
| Robbery | 2 | 8.2 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
The chart omits 2021 rather than drawing an unsupported zero or partial-coverage dip. The table preserves the year and marks the gap.
Lead series · rose across 4 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · rose · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 25,084 | 63.8 | 330.9 |
| 2021 | Insufficient reporting | 24,929 | - | - |
| 2022 | Comparable | 23,995 | 100 | 504.3 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 24,092 | 124.5 | 618.5 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 24,420 | 188.4 | 667.5 |
South Elgin Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind South Elgin's 209 reported offenses (4-year span 2020-2024, with internal gaps).
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 Illinois cities closest to South Elgin in population. Their populations run from 23,599 to 24,968, against 24,420 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
South Elgin sits at 188.4/100K violent (grade A); the Illinois cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
South Elgin at 188.4/100K violent and 667.5/100K property - matched below outside Illinois (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
188.4/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
667.5/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
In 2024, South Elgin reported 46 violent crimes and 163 property crimes, for a total of 209 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, South Elgin's violent crime rate increased by 51.3%, and the property crime rate increased by 7.9%.
The most common crime type in South Elgin is larceny-theft, accounting for 57.9% of all reported crimes (121 incidents in 2024).
Mid-size read: South Elgin 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 South Elgin's mid-size city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 South Elgin, IL 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. South Elgin is scored in the mid-size municipal band (24,420 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.