West Branch, IA has a A safety grade (87/100) with a violent crime rate of 106 per 100,000, 70% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · small city
West Branch is a small municipal reporter (2,841 on the UCR row). Per-100,000 violent and property rates are shown with IA and U.S. context.
Data updated 2026-08-24
West Branch, IA carries a PlainCrime A safety grade with violent crime 70% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, West Branch, IA shows violent crime at 105.6 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 316.8 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 70% 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.
Small-count caution
West Branch reported 3 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 2,841. 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.
Comparable rate records
The nearest comparable 2024 records to West Branch's 105.6 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Lansing (105.2), Bettendorf (104.7), Anamosa (103.6), Gowrie (107.8). 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 25.0% of the 12 Part I offenses reported in West Branch for 2024, against a median of 15.8% across comparable Iowa cities — a gap of 9.2 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 105.6 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, West Branch ranks 95 of 148 — above 53 of the 147 other Iowa cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is -27.8% against the cohort median of 146.3. 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 88.9% of reported property offenses in West Branch, against a cohort median of 76.1%. The remainder is burglary (1) and motor vehicle theft (0). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Property counts dominate West Branch'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.
Based on 3 reported violent incidents in a population of 2,841. 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-city offense counts above are voluntary UCR submissions, not neighbourhood advice. Year-to-year swings can look large when the population base is modest.
Across 2.6 Census sq mi, West Branch logged 3.5 property and 1.2 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
West Branch's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (67% of 12 offenses; mix index 4,861).
Violent offenses are 25% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
West Branch offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (2.6 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 | 9 | 316.8 |
| Larceny-Theft | 8 | 281.6 |
| Burglary | 1 | 35.2 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 0 | 0 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 3 | 105.6 |
| Aggravated Assault | 2 | 70.4 |
| Rape | 1 | 35.2 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
| Robbery | 0 | 0 |
Lead series · fell across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · fell · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 2,510 | 0 | 358.6 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 2,539 | 196.9 | 433.2 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 2,608 | 0 | 536.8 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 2,729 | 109.9 | 219.9 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 2,841 | 105.6 | 316.8 |
West Branch Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind West Branch's 12 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 Iowa cities closest to West Branch in population. Their populations run from 2,569 to 3,023, against 2,841 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
In 2024, West Branch reported 3 violent crimes and 9 property crimes, for a total of 12 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, West Branch's violent crime rate decreased by 3.9%, and the property crime rate increased by 44.1%.
The most common crime type in West Branch is larceny-theft, accounting for 66.7% of all reported crimes (8 incidents in 2024).
Small-city read: West Branch is sourced from FBI UCR Table 8 for 2024; rates use that row's population.
Small-city rows use the same per-100,000 formula; a few unreported years can leave gaps in the trend table. Verify the agency's submission on FBI.gov UCR.
Disclaimer (small city): UCR counts here are informational only. They are not a victimization probability. Source: FBI UCR Program.
Small-city rate methodology for how West Branch's small city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 West Branch, IA 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. West Branch is scored as a small-city UCR reporter (2,841 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.