State crime profile · 2024
Delaware Crime Rates: Safest & Most Dangerous Cities
Crime data for 38 cities and 1 of 3 counties in Delaware (DE), ranked safest to most dangerous from 63 reporting agencies.
Data updated 2026-08-24
- 367.8
- Violent / 100K
- 1,772.7
- Property / 100K
- 38
- Cities
- 1
- Counties
Delaware violent crime is 367.8 per 100,000, 4% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Delaware records 367.8 violent crimes per 100,000 residents, 4% above the national average (about the 30th-safest of 51 states and D.C.). Statewide averages hide city and county variation; UCR participation is voluntary.
- 367.8 violent crimes per 100K
- +4% vs. the U.S. average
- 30th safest of 51 states & DC
- 1,772.7 property crimes per 100K
How safe is Delaware? FBI UCR data snapshot
Delaware (DE) reported 3,869 violent crimes and 18,647 property crimes in 2024, based on FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program submissions from 63 law enforcement agencies. That translates to a statewide violent crime rate of 367.8 per 100,000 residents and a property crime rate of 1772.7 per 100,000 against a reporting population of 1,051,917. The PlainCrime dataset indexes 38 Delaware cities and 1 counties, each with their own detail pages and local crime figures drawn from FBI UCR Tables 8 and 10.
The FBI's state-level summary reports violent and property crime as aggregate totals rather than broken out by individual offense type (murder, rape, robbery, assault, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft, arson). For an offense-by-offense breakdown, see the individual city and county pages for Delaware below, which draw on FBI UCR Tables 8 and 10 and do report each offense type separately.
Across 11 years of state-level UCR history (2014–2024), the violent crime rate moved from 488.2 to 367.8 per 100,000, a decline of 24.7%. City-level detail pages within Delaware include safety grades (A+ to F), benchmarks against national averages, per-capita risk estimates, and multi-year trend tables for users comparing specific jurisdictions. All figures above are drawn from FBI UCR 2024 submissions; reporting completeness varies by agency, and the FBI periodically restates prior-year figures as late submissions arrive.
How Delaware ranks nationally
Delaware vs. every U.S. state
Violent crime per 100,000 residents, FBI UCR 2024. Lower is safer.
368 41st percentile among 51 U.S. states
Each bar is a band of values; taller bars hold more U.S. states. The dashed line + filled bar mark this entry. Hover or tap any bar for its full count, share, and where it sits relative to this entry.
Source FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program · 2024
Safest cities · Most dangerous cities · Crime trends
Crime Trends
| Year | Population | Violent Crime | Rate | Property Crime | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 1,051,917 | 3,869 | 367.8 | 18,647 | 1772.7 |
| 2023 | 1,031,890 | 4,110 | 398.3 | 20,213 | 1958.8 |
| 2022 | 1,018,396 | 4,007 | 393.5 | 20,251 | 1988.5 |
| 2021 | 1,003,384 | 4,261 | 424.7 | 19,100 | 1903.6 |
| 2020 | 986,809 | 4,363 | 442.1 | 19,531 | 1979.2 |
| 2019 | 973,764 | 4,115 | 422.6 | 22,011 | 2260.4 |
| 2018 | 967,171 | 4,093 | 423.2 | 22,525 | 2329 |
| 2017 | 961,939 | 4,376 | 454.9 | 23,541 | 2447.2 |
| 2016 | 952,065 | 4,859 | 510.4 | 26,550 | 2788.7 |
| 2015 | 945,934 | 4,760 | 503.2 | 25,706 | 2717.5 |
| 2014 | 935,614 | 4,568 | 488.2 | 28,124 | 3005.9 |
Cities in Delaware
Safest cities in Delaware
Cities with 25,000+ residents, lowest violent crime per 100,000, FBI UCR 2024. Hover a bar for the exact rate.
- Middletown 125
Middletown
125 /100K
- Newark 310
Newark
310 /100K
- Dover
Dover
1,013 /100K
- Wilmington
Wilmington
1,127 /100K
What this shows Middletown is the safest sizeable city in Delaware, at 125 violent crimes per 100,000.
Highest violent-crime cities in Delaware
Cities with 25,000+ residents, highest violent crime per 100,000, FBI UCR 2024. Hover a bar for the exact rate.
- Wilmington
Wilmington
1,127 /100K
- Dover
Dover
1,013 /100K
- Newark 310
Newark
310 /100K
- Middletown 125
Middletown
125 /100K
What this shows Wilmington reports the highest big-city violent-crime rate in Delaware, at 1,127 per 100,000.
Wilmington is both volume #1 and rate #1 among 4 Delaware cities with 25,000+ residents in FBI UCR 2024. That non-invert is disclosed, not hidden.
| City | Population | Violent / 100K | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wilmington | 71,958 | 1,127 | F |
| Dover | 40,087 | 1,012.8 | F |
| Newark | 30,030 | 309.7 | C |
| Middletown | 25,594 | 125 | B |
| Milford | 14,028 | 791.3 | F |
| Smyrna | 13,386 | 485.6 | D |
| Seaford | 8,998 | 1,133.6 | F |
| Georgetown | 8,117 | 702.2 | F |
| Millsboro | 7,883 | 418.6 | D |
| Elsmere | 6,135 | 244.5 | B |
| New Castle | 5,552 | 378.2 | D |
| Clayton | 4,545 | 110 | A |
| Laurel | 4,410 | 1,451.2 | F |
| Camden | 4,364 | 320.8 | D |
| Harrington | 3,888 | 385.8 | C |
| Milton | 3,793 | 263.6 | B |
| Lewes | 3,704 | 162 | A |
| Selbyville | 3,286 | 91.3 | A |
| Ocean View | 3,035 | 65.9 | A |
| Bridgeville | 2,920 | 239.7 | B |
| Townsend | 2,862 | 34.9 | A+ |
| Cheswold | 2,379 | 294.2 | B |
| Delmar | 2,279 | 614.3 | F |
| Wyoming | 1,926 | 571.1 | D |
| Delaware City | 1,912 | 156.9 | A |
| Felton | 1,369 | 292.2 | C |
| Blades | 1,336 | 748.5 | F |
| Rehoboth Beach | 1,258 | 635.9 | F |
| Greenwood | 1,123 | 89 | A |
| Bethany Beach | 1,093 | 640.4 | F |
| Dagsboro | 992 | 201.6 | B |
| Frankford | 905 | 110.5 | A |
| Newport | 892 | 448.4 | D |
| Ellendale | 558 | 0 | A+ |
| South Bethany | 520 | 0 | A+ |
| Dewey Beach | 406 | 4,433.5 | F |
| Fenwick Island | 388 | 257.7 | C |
| Viola | 149 | 0 | A+ |
Counties in Delaware
1 of 3 Census county-equivalents (33.3%) appear in FBI Table 10 for this vintage. Missing counties are absent from the FBI source for this year, not dropped by PlainCrime. See national county coverage and methodology.
Largest counties in Delaware, violent crime per 100K
Top 1 counties by population, violent crime per 100,000 residents. Hover a bar for the exact rate.
- New Castle
New Castle
121 /100K
Nationwide peers for Delaware
Similar violent rate (~367.8/100K)
- North Carolina · 364.6/100K violent
- Alabama · 376.1/100K violent
- New York · 380/100K violent
- Texas · 394.7/100K violent
Similar property rate (~1,772.7/100K)
- Louisiana · 1772.7/100K property
- Arizona · 1786/100K property
- Alaska · 1740.8/100K property
- North Dakota · 1705.7/100K property
Nearby States
Safest cities · Most dangerous · Trends · National rankings · Crime grades · Compare · Methodology
Primary source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, Crime in the United States annual release. State-level trends cross-check against the FBI Crime Data Explorer (CDE) API.
Population figures for rate calculations reference U.S. Census Bureau estimates where FBI-reported populations are unavailable. Verify with Census.gov QuickFacts.
Read our methodology , how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.
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.