Crime in Sterling, Illinois
Major crime in Sterling is 34% below the U.S. rate per resident: 21% lower for persons crimes and 37% lower for property crimes. Expected major crimes are down 8.2% from a year earlier.
Modeled estimates per resident, not counts of incidents. How we calculated this
Index: crimes per resident compared with the U.S., where 100 is the U.S. rate and 200 is twice it.
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Rape / sexual assault stands out most, at 1.8 times the U.S. rate
Expected crimes per year in Sterling for each type, and the index against the U.S. rate per resident.
Citywide indexWhere the middle half of residents live
Property crimes
Social disorder
How crime varies across Sterling
The middle half of Sterling residents live in neighborhoods with a major-crime index between 37 and 74; the typical (median) resident's is 61.
- 0–5038.5%
- 50–10048.0%
- 100–2007.1%
- 200–4006.4%
- 400+0.0%
Share of residents by the index of their census block group, a neighborhood of roughly 600 to 3,000 people.
Highest on weekday daytimes
Major-crime index by time of week, against the U.S. rate for the same hours.
Major crime fell 8.2% in a year; across Illinois it fell 9.6%
Change in expected crimes, with Illinois as a whole in gray. The past year uses the reporting agencies' year-to-date FBI data; 2031 is the model's projection.
Sterling against U.S. places with 10,000 to 25,000 residents
1,186 of the 2,149 other places of this size have a higher major-crime index than Sterling; the middle of the group is 72. The 9 nearest in population:
Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; residents in gray.
Sterling 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, Rock Falls (2 mi), is 2.3 times Sterling's rate.
Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; distances between where residents live, in miles.
Questions about crime in Sterling
What are the most common crimes in Sterling?
By expected count, the most common persons and property crimes are other larceny (about 49 a year), shoplifting (about 35 a year) and aggravated assault (about 24 a year). Compared with the U.S., rape / sexual assault stands out most: 1.8 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. Sterling's figures add up its 17 block groups. The index compares crimes per resident with the U.S. rate.
- Sterling 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: 14,160. Model updated Oct 20, 2026. Release 2026-2026-10-20-2
Full method and validation·Data sources
CrimeMetric. "Crime in Sterling, Illinois." Vorp Labs, model updated Oct 20, 2026. https://crimemetric.com/il/sterling
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Major-crime index, U.S. = 100
- Rock Falls2 mi151
- Dixon11 mi27
- Polo14 mi19
- Morrison14 mi33
- Amboy19 mi33
- Mount Morris22 mi25
- Oregon24 mi62
- Fulton25 mi43