County crime profile · 2024 · small-population county · violent-led
Petroleum County is a small-population county in Montana. Reported FBI UCR offense counts are shown first; per-100,000 rates require a matched Census denominator.
Data updated 2026-09-05
Petroleum County, MT reported 807 violent crimes per 100,000 in FBI UCR 2024
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Petroleum County, MT agencies reported 4 violent and 2 property offenses. That equals about 807 violent and 403 property crimes per 100,000 using a verified Census population join. Table 10 coverage is a voluntary subset of U.S. counties.
2021–2024 direction
Across 4 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 403.2 per 100,000 in 2021 to 806.5 in 2024 (+100.0%). The highest observed value was 806.5 in 2024 and the lowest 0.0 in 2022. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Small-count caution
Petroleum County reported 4 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 496. 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.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 66.7% of the 6 Part I offenses reported in Petroleum County for 2024, against a median of 33.3% across comparable Montana counties — a gap of 33.3 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.
Position in the state cohort
At 806.5 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Petroleum County ranks 1 of 56 — above 55 of the 55 other Montana counties whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test and carries a matched Census denominator. That is +494.3% against the cohort median of 135.7. Counties 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 100.0% of reported property offenses in Petroleum County, against a cohort median of 72.0%. The remainder is burglary (0) and motor vehicle theft (0). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
On a small-population county row, small denominators make rates swing on a handful of incidents. Figures are what agencies reported, not a neighbourhood safety grade. Census-matched rates appear only when the join exists.
| Category | Count |
|---|---|
| Violent Crime | 4 |
| Murder | 0 |
| Rape | 0 |
| Robbery | 0 |
| Aggravated Assault | 4 |
| Property Crime | 2 |
| Burglary | 0 |
| Larceny-Theft | 2 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 0 |
| Arson | 0 |
Petroleum County's crime figures on this page originate from Petroleum County Sheriff's Office's submission to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Program.
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.
A per-capita rate is easiest to read against places of similar scale, so these are the Montana counties closest to Petroleum County in population. Their populations run from 762 to 1,173, against 496 here. Or launch the side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two jurisdictions directly.
State atlas: Montana · Compare · Rankings
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, Crime in the United States (CIUS) Table 10.
FBI Table 10 supplies county offense counts but no resident population. Where this page shows a per-100,000 rate, the denominator is a separately matched 2020 U.S. Census Bureau county population; unmatched county rows remain count-only. Statewide comparisons draw on the state UCR program. Verify with FBI.gov UCR and Census.gov QuickFacts.
Read our methodology , how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.
Put this to use
Use the Petroleum County, MT FBI UCR county record to open cities inside the county, compare the state file, or look up another place.
County Table 10 totals are voluntary agency filings: incomplete coverage is not a county crime measure, and a countywide figure is not a neighbourhood verdict.
Every figure on PlainCrime is rendered directly from FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) source data, no number is typed in by an editor. This page draws directly on FBI Uniform Crime Reporting source data, no figure is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.