Is Crime Up Or Down In Michigan? Here’s What FBI Data Shows

MICHIGAN — Violent crimes decreased in Michigan last year amid a nationwide plunge in similar cases, according to the latest statistics from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The FBI on Tuesday released 2024 Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) data for more than 14 million criminal offenses across the United States, including in Michigan.

Nationwide, violent crime is down about 4.5 percent from 2023 estimates. That includes drops in murders (14.9 percent), rapes (5.2 percent), robberies (8.9 percent) and aggravated assaults (3 percent). Meanwhile, property crime dropped 8.1 percent last year in the United States, including burglaries (8.6 percent), larcenies (5.5 percent) and vehicle thefts (18.6 percent).

These numbers are the lowest property crime rates and lowest violent crime rates since at least 1969, according to the Center for American Progress.

The FBI noted that despite the reductions, a violent crime still took place every 26 seconds somewhere in America last year.

Michigan reported 43,260 violent crimes with a population of 10,077,331 residents last year, a rate of 429.2 per 100,000 people. That’s down from 46,014 violent crimes in 2023, or 456.3 per 100,000 people.

However, Michigan's violent crime totals were higher than the national violent crime rate, which came to 359.1 per 100,000 people.

Michigan experienced 138,377 property crimes last year, a rate of roughly 1,373 per 100,000 people. The statewide total is down from 156,712 property crimes in 2023, or 1,554 per 100,000 people.

For this category, Michigan was below the national property crime rate of 1,760 per 100,000 residents.

Here are some previous years of crime statistics in Michigan for comparison:

2022

• Violent: 46,247
• Property: 155,812

2021

• Violent: 49,103
• Property: 137,377

2020

• Violent: 48,620
• Property: 139,538

2019

• Violent: 43,693
• Property: 158,523

2018

• Violent: 45,272
• Property: 167,084

2017

• Violent: 45,014
• Property: 181,138

2016

• Violent: 45,545
• Property: 190,485

2015

• Violent: 41,492
• Property: 191,611

In Michigan, aggravated assaults made up a majority of violent crimes committed in the state. In 2024, 31,009 aggravated assaults were reported, down from 32,585 in 2023. Rape (sexual abuse) followed with 5,588 reported to the FBI.

Larceny was the most reported property crime in 2024 at 95,286 cases, down from 106,170 in 2023.

The UCR program was rolled out in 1930. Nonfederal law enforcement agencies from across the country voluntarily submit their crime and law enforcement data to the program. The FBI publishes the contributed data on its Crime Data Explorer website.

More than 16,000 state, county, city, university and college and tribal agencies – covering a combined 95.6 percent of the United States population – submitted data to the UCR program through the National Incident-Based Reporting System and the Summary Reporting System last year.

Some politicians and commentators have argued that the FBI data may be fraudulent, manipulated or incomplete. However, civil rights advocacy groups such as the Brennan Center for Justice have disputed those claims.

Patch editor Eric Kiefer contributed reporting.