St. Helens, OR is higher-crime than most U.S. cities, and earns a B PlainCrime safety grade, where violent crime runs 22% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, St. Helens, OR shows violent crime at 273.7 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 923.6 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 22% 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.
B safety grade
273.7/100K violent
923.6/100K property
-22% vs U.S.
What the 2024 FBI UCR record shows for St. Helens, OR
Comparable rate records
St. Helens's closest reported-rate comparisons are in the Oregon cohort
The nearest comparable 2024 records to St. Helens's 273.7 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Cottage Grove (272.9), Woodburn (275.4), Boardman (271.4), Talent (268.2). 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.
Offense mix
Violent offenses make up an unusually large share of the reported mix
Violent offenses are 22.9% of the 175 Part I offenses reported in St. Helens for 2024, against a median of 11.4% across comparable Oregon cities — a gap of 11.5 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
St. Helens sits mid-pack among comparable Oregon cities
At 273.7 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, St. Helens ranks 30 of 88 — above 58 of the 87 other Oregon cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +24.2% against the cohort median of 220.4. 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
Burglary and vehicle theft carry more of the property total than they do across the cohort
Larceny-theft is 68.9% of reported property offenses in St. Helens, against a cohort median of 81.7%. The remainder is burglary (32) and motor vehicle theft (10). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
2020–2024 direction
The reported violent-crime rate ended the window higher
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 260.5 per 100,000 in 2020 to 273.7 in 2024 (+5.0%). The highest observed value was 294.5 in 2023 and the lowest 260.5 in 2020. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property counts dominate St. Helens'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.
St. Helens's 2024 municipal footprint
Across 4.9 Census sq mi, St. Helens logged 27.8 property and 8.2 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
St. Helens leans on larceny-theft at 53% of reported offenses, with a moderate mix index of 3,578.
Violent offenses are 23% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (4.9 sq mi); mix index is HHI x 10,000 on the offense-type shares above. Distinct from the per-100K rates in the hero.
Property rate moved most (2023→2024)
Property Crime Rate
-10.1%
1027.2 → 923.6/100K
Violent Crime Rate
-7.1%
294.5 → 273.7/100K
Property offenses lead St. Helens's 2024 record
Offense
Count
Rate /100K
vs OR
Property Crime
135
923.6
2409.8
Larceny-Theft
93
636.3
-
Burglary
32
218.9
-
Motor Vehicle Theft
10
68.4
-
Arson
2
13.7
-
Violent Crime
40
273.7
334.6
Aggravated Assault
34
232.6
-
Rape
5
34.2
-
Robbery
1
6.8
-
Murder
0
0
-
St. Helens Crime Trend (2020-2024)
St. Helens property crime rate trend
Lead series · fell across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program · split lines are the U.S. national averagesRead the chart as a list
St. Helens: 274 violent, 924 property per 100,000 (grade B)
Coos Bay: 627 violent, 4461 property per 100,000 (grade F)
The Dalles: 369 violent, 2559 property per 100,000 (grade C)
Cornelius: 323 violent, 1602 property per 100,000 (grade C)
Sandy: 61 violent, 1518 property per 100,000 (grade A)
La Grande: 255 violent, 2669 property per 100,000 (grade C)
Prineville: 241 violent, 731 property per 100,000 (grade B)
Pendleton: 409 violent, 2681 property per 100,000 (grade D)
Gladstone: 195 violent, 1677 property per 100,000 (grade B)
St. Helens Police Department
Reporting agency for St. Helens NIBRS-participating
St. Helens Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind St. Helens's 175 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.
Similar-Size Cities in Oregon
Crime rates read differently at different scales, so these are the Oregon cities closest to St. Helens in population. Their populations run from 11,810 to 17,380, against 14,616 here. Or use our
side-by-side compare tool
to benchmark two cities directly.
In 2024, St. Helens reported 40 violent crimes and 135 property crimes, for a total of 175 reported offenses.
Is crime increasing or decreasing in St. Helens?
From 2023 to 2024, St. Helens's violent crime rate decreased by 7.1%, and the property crime rate decreased by 10.1%.
What is the most common crime in St. Helens?
The most common crime type in St. Helens is larceny-theft, accounting for 53.1% of all reported crimes (93 incidents in 2024).
Mid-size read: St. Helens 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.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 St. Helens, OR rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.