Is Crime Going Up or Down in My City?

The short answer

Pick two years, take the reported crime rate for your city's police agency in each, and compare them. The rate for each year is the crimes the agency reported to the FBI divided by the population it served that year, times 100,000. The change between the two rates, as a share of the earlier one, is the trend. It is one agency against its own past, which is a question the data can answer. Which city is doing better is not.

Why the rate, not the count

A count of crimes goes up when the population goes up, even if nothing else changes. A rate per 100,000 people takes that out, because each year is divided by its own population. So a city that grew by a tenth and reported a tenth more crimes has a flat rate. Always compare rates, and keep both counts and both populations in view so you can see which of them moved.

A worked example

Burlington Police Department, Vermont, violent crime, 2015 against 2025.

2015: 109 ÷ 42,160 × 100,000 = 258.5. 2025: 214 ÷ 44,354 × 100,000 = 482.5. The difference is 223.9 per 100,000, and 223.9 ÷ 258.5 works out to up 87%. That is the whole calculation. Both the count and the population changed between the two years, and the rate carries both.

Three checks before you trust a trend

1. Both years must be complete

An agency that sent the FBI nine months of one year will show a lower count for it, and a trend built on that year is a trend in reporting, not in crime. CrimeTally shows a rate only for a year with all 12 months reported and a population listed, and the trend tool shows no change unless both years clear that bar. Never fill a missing year by stretching a partial one to twelve months.

2. The 2021 switch

In 2021 the FBI accepted reports only through its newer reporting system, called NIBRS. An agency that switched to NIBRS between your two years counted them in different ways: the older system recorded only the most serious offense in an incident, and NIBRS records every offense. Part of a rise across the switch can be the change in counting. The trend tool says when the agency you picked switched between the years you chose. Agencies that had not switched by 2021 have an incomplete 2021, and no rate for it.

3. Small places swing

In an agency serving a few thousand people, a handful of reports is a large percent. A town with four violent crimes one year and eight the next has a rate that doubled on four reports. Read the counts beside the percent, and for small places look at every year in between, not just the two ends.

What the trend leaves out

A reported crime rate counts crimes reported to police and passed to the FBI. It rises when more crimes happen, but also when more people report them, when the agency changes how it records them, or when the FBI's population figure for it changes. The data does not say which of those moved, and this guide does not guess. The FBI's own guidance on using its statistics lists these and other factors that a rate cannot see.

What this guide does not cover

It does not compare one city's trend with another's, and it does not sort places by how much their rate changed. A sorted list of changes is a ranking, and the FBI cautions against ranking places with its data. It also says nothing about any one neighborhood, street or school, and nothing about where to live.

Check your own city

The Crime Trend tool runs this calculation for any US police agency in the FBI's data, from any year back to 2015, and says what is missing when a year falls short.

This guide is for informational purposes only and is not professional advice. A reported crime rate describes what one police agency reported to the FBI. It says nothing certain about any one home, street or school.

Last reviewed: September 2026 · Against the FBI Crime Data Explorer, September 2026 refresh, and the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Statistics: Their Proper Use (May 2017).