Crime Trends Utahns Need To Watch Out For In 2024

With election season swiftly approaching Utahns have questions and of them is: What are the actual crime rates? 

Well, U.S. violent crime rates seem to be trending downwards according to preliminary numbers from the FBI in 2024. Namely, rape and murder statistics seem to be down. According to the numbers, the first quarter of 2024 say violent crime decrease by 15.2%, murder by 26.4 %, and rape go down by 25.7%.  

However, since the preliminary numbers tend to have errors the U.S. News and World Report said, these could be exaggerated. The trend of going downward is probably accurate but the actual numbers might be a little off.  

How Does Utah Compare? 

The good news is that Utah sees way less of violent crimes than the U.S. and one of the main worries is not a violent crime at all but package theft. Don’t get me wrong, package theft is not great but it's definitely not a violent crime.  

Safe Wise said that 2.8 in 1,000 people is what Utah sees in actual violent crime while the U.S. sees 4.0 per 1,000 people. There was an increase from the previous year, which was 2.6. However, this is well below the national average at 29% compared to national crime rate averages.  

How Concerned Are Utahns About Crime? 

Just like in actual crime rates, Utahns are less bothered than on a national average. Roughly 35% or Utah is concerned about violent crime (50% nationally), 43% are concerned about property theft (52% nationally), 31% are worried about gun violence (51% nationally) and 58% are concerned with package theft (53% nationally). 

The only crime Utahns are truly worried about is package theft which is a good thing. However, people should be more concerned about violent crimes concerning rape since Utah’s violent crimes numbers with that are worse than the national average.  

32% of Utah’s violent crimes are made up of rapes. Nationally only 11% of violent crime is rape.  

So, yes, crime is trending downward in the U.S. and in Utah but there is still work to be done before and after election season.