Crime in Columbia, Missouri
Major crime in Columbia is 12% above the U.S. rate per resident: 18% higher for persons crimes and 11% higher for property crimes. Expected major crimes are down 19.8% 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.
Check an address in Columbia
Simple assault stands out most, at 1.9 times the U.S. rate
Expected crimes per year in Columbia 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 Columbia
The middle half of Columbia residents live in neighborhoods with a major-crime index between 38 and 125; the typical (median) resident's is 66. The citywide figure (112) is higher than that because crime concentrates in a smaller set of areas.
- 0–5033.9%
- 50–10033.6%
- 100–20020.8%
- 200–4005.5%
- 400+6.1%
Share of residents by the index of their census block group, a neighborhood of roughly 600 to 3,000 people.
Highest on Friday and Saturday nights
Major-crime index by time of week, against the U.S. rate for the same hours.
Major crime fell 19.8% in a year; across Missouri it fell 11.3%
Change in expected crimes, with Missouri as a whole in gray. The past year uses the reporting agencies' year-to-date FBI data; 2031 is the model's projection.
Columbia against U.S. places with 100,000 to 250,000 residents
130 of the 268 other places of this size have a higher major-crime index than Columbia; the middle of the group is 109. The 9 nearest in population:
Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; residents in gray.
Columbia has a higher major-crime index than all of its 8 nearest neighbors
The 8 nearest cities and towns we cover, by major-crime index. The closest, Centralia (20 mi), is 61% below Columbia's rate.
Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; distances between where residents live, in miles.
Questions about crime in Columbia
What are the most common crimes in Columbia?
By expected count, the most common persons and property crimes are other larceny (about 638 a year), theft from vehicle (about 537 a year) and shoplifting (about 525 a year). Compared with the U.S., simple assault stands out most: 1.9 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. Columbia's figures add up its 89 block groups. The index compares crimes per resident with the U.S. rate.
- Columbia's published incident records inform the estimate for every neighborhood.
- 59.7% 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: 133,154. Model updated Oct 20, 2026. Release 2026-2026-10-20-2
Full method and validation·Data sources
CrimeMetric. "Crime in Columbia, Missouri." Vorp Labs, model updated Oct 20, 2026. https://crimemetric.com/mo/columbia
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 keyNearest cities we publish
Major-crime index, U.S. = 100
- Centralia20 mi44
- Boonville22 mi109
- Fulton22 mi34
- Holts Summit23 mi25
- Fayette24 mi39
- California25 mi36
- Jefferson City27 mi98
- Mexico29 mi103