CrimeMetric

Crime in Spirit Lake, Iowa

Major crime in Spirit Lake is 29% below the U.S. rate per resident: 42% lower for persons crimes and 27% lower for property crimes. Expected major crimes are down 7.9% from a year earlier.

Modeled estimates per resident, not counts of incidents. How we calculated this

Major crime
71
29% below the U.S. rate
about the Iowa rate
down 7.9% in a year
Persons crimes
58
42% below the U.S. rate
22% below the Iowa rate
down 4.4% in a year
Property crimes
73
27% below the U.S. rate
about the Iowa rate
down 8.5% in a year
Social disorder
101
about the U.S. rate
about the Iowa rate
down 6.5% in a year

Index: crimes per resident compared with the U.S., where 100 is the U.S. rate and 200 is twice it.

Check an address in Spirit Lake

Crime by type

Drugs and alcohol stands out most, at 1.6 times the U.S. rate

Expected crimes per year in Spirit Lake for each type, and the index against the U.S. rate per resident.

Citywide indexWhere the middle half of residents live

IndexPer year

How crime varies across Spirit Lake

The middle half of Spirit Lake residents live in neighborhoods with a major-crime index between 29 and 66; the typical (median) resident's is 36. The citywide figure (71) is higher than that because crime concentrates in a smaller set of areas.

Map of Spirit Lake, with its census block groups shaded by major-crime index band
Block groups shaded by major-crime index, in the bar's bands below; pale gray where fewer than 100 people live. Highways and boundaries: U.S. Census Bureau.
  • 0–5054.3%
  • 50–10026.0%
  • 100–20019.6%
  • 200–4000.0%
  • 400+0.0%

Share of residents by the index of their census block group, a neighborhood of roughly 600 to 3,000 people.

When it happens

Highest at night

Major-crime index by time of week, against the U.S. rate for the same hours.

Monday to Friday, 6am to 6pm62
Sunday to Thursday nights, 6pm to 6am82
Saturday and Sunday, 6am to 6pm62
Friday and Saturday nights, 6pm to 6am80
Trend and outlook

Major crime fell 7.9% in a year; across Iowa it fell 10.5%

Past yearBy 2031
Major crime-7.9%IA -10.5%-12.5%IA -13.2%
Persons crimes-4.4%IA -1.6%+2.9%IA -1.2%
Property crimes-8.5%IA -12.2%-15.2%IA -15.9%
Social disorder-6.5%IA -6.3%-6.4%IA -8.2%

Change in expected crimes, with Iowa as a whole in gray. The past year uses the reporting agencies' year-to-date FBI data; 2031 is the model's projection.

Similar-size places

Spirit Lake against U.S. places with 5,000 to 10,000 residents

947 of the 2,163 other places of this size have a higher major-crime index than Spirit Lake; the middle of the group is 63. The 9 nearest in population:

Spirit Lake, IA5,67371

Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; residents in gray.

Nearby places

Spirit Lake has a higher major-crime index than 7 of its 8 nearest neighbors

The 8 nearest cities and towns we cover, by major-crime index. The closest, Estherville (14 mi), is 58% below Spirit Lake's rate.

Spirit Lake71
Spencer19 mi53
Windom, MN33 mi48
Emmetsburg30 mi31
Sibley32 mi14

Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; distances between where residents live, in miles.

Questions about crime in Spirit Lake

What are the most common crimes in Spirit Lake?

By expected count, the most common persons and property crimes are other larceny (about 31 a year), shoplifting (about 13 a year) and burglary (about 9 a year). Compared with the U.S., drugs and alcohol stands out most: 1.6 times the U.S. rate per resident.

How we calculated this

Each police agency's crimes, as reported to the FBI, are spread across the census block groups it serves using population, jobs, points of interest and, where available, local incident records. Spirit Lake's figures add up its 5 block groups. The index compares crimes per resident with the U.S. rate.

  • Spirit Lake has no published incident records in our data, so its estimate relies on agency totals and neighborhood characteristics.
  • 0.0% of residents live in block groups whose estimate has high confidence (80% interval within about 5x).
  • Rates are per resident, so places where many people work or visit but few live, such as downtowns, airports and stadiums, can read high.
  • Disorderly conduct and trespassing are modeled, because the FBI records them only through arrests.
  • Residents: 5,673. Model updated Oct 20, 2026. Release 2026-2026-10-20-2

Full method and validation·Data sources

Cite this page

CrimeMetric. "Crime in Spirit Lake, Iowa." Vorp Labs, model updated Oct 20, 2026. https://crimemetric.com/ia/spirit-lake

Use these numbers in your product

Any U.S. address by API or MCP, free for 10,000 lookups a month.

Get a free API key

Nearest cities we publish

Major-crime index, U.S. = 100