North Dakota: The Best and Worst Cities for Crime

As crime rates climb across the state, Fargo reports the highest levels of both property and violent crime.
North Dakota header map with magnifying glass
Derek Prall
July 26, 2024 Derek Prall Derek Prall , Home Security Expert | July 26, 2024
Statewide Crime Trends in North Dakota Property Crime in North Dakota Violent Crime In North Dakota

In May 2023, the North Dakota state attorney general announced that the state was facing a violent crime problem with a trend toward increasing violent crime rates in the Peace Garden State.

Despite a 5% decrease in crime rates for the most serious offenses at the time, Attorney General Drew Wrigley then said that overall violent crime rates had been on the rise.

Group A offenses in the state (those including murder, manslaughter, aggravated assault, kidnapping, and rape) went down by 5%, but many other categories had increased, leaving progress in state crime and safety rates stagnant.

North Dakota crime chart

“Every violent criminal that gets a not long enough sentence to begin with, and then only serves a portion of it, and then goes out and commits another one of these offenses, that’s on us. That is on us because we didn’t make it mandatory that they be incarcerated,” Wrigley said.

Fargo, North Dakota, famous as the setting for a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/Universal Pictures murder mystery film released in 1996, remains the state’s least safe city by violent crime rates and property crime data. Meanwhile, Burlington (not to be confused with the cities bearing the same name in New Jersey and Vermont) is the safest city in the state, according to crime data.

Property Crime in North Dakota

Property crime in North Dakota is lower than other states in America, with the state ranking #15 out of 50 with #1 being the safest state average with the lowest crime rates. (Most recently, that happened to be Washington state).

North Dakota property crime rates bar graph

In December 2023, a local radio affiliate for Bismarck reported a scary way criminals were breaking into North Dakota homes at high speeds:

“It will literally take them 6 seconds to get into your garage. It involves a wire coat hanger with a piece of 2 by 4 wood on the top panel of your garage door. They simply use the coat hanger to loop around the hanging door release cord. Then a quick pull and the door is released for easy opening.”

The least safe city in North Dakota for property crime was Fargo with a crime rate of 4,147 per 100,000 residents. The safest city in North Dakota for property crime is Hazen.

Violent Crime In North Dakota

Violent crime in North Dakota has been on the rise according to state authorities. Despite a decrease in the most egregious and heinous violent crimes, the overall category has unfortunately been rising.

North Dakota violet crime rates bar graph

Fargo topped the violent crime rates with 617 reports per 100,000 and Stanley had the lowest violent crime rate in North Dakota, with 43 incidents reported per 100,000 people.

Our Data

Our data comes from comprehensive reporting compiled by the FBI and accessed via the Crime Data Explorer (CDE) website. Property and violent crime state figures were drawn from Table 5 of the 2022 Crime in the U.S. Report. Metropolitan figures were found in Table 6, Crime in the U.S. by Metropolitan Statistical Area. City-level figures were drawn from Table 8, Offenses Known to Law Enforcement by State by City. The population figures in that table are U.S. Census Bureau provisional estimates as of July 1, 2020.

Limitations: According to the FBI, the data in the publication tables may differ from those released on the Explorer Pages of the CDE. These variations are due to the difference in methodologies between the publication tables and data displayed on the CDE. Please note that crime statistics are not the sole measure of a city’s safety.

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