Crime in Madison, Wisconsin
Major crime in Madison is 23% above the U.S. rate per resident: 28% lower for persons crimes and 35% higher for property crimes. Expected major crimes are down 6.3% 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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Shoplifting stands out most, at 2.3 times the U.S. rate
Expected crimes per year in Madison 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 Madison
The middle half of Madison residents live in neighborhoods with a major-crime index between 44 and 133; the typical (median) resident's is 77. The citywide figure (123) is higher than that because crime concentrates in a smaller set of areas.
- 0–5029.6%
- 50–10033.7%
- 100–20026.1%
- 200–4007.4%
- 400+3.2%
Share of residents by the index of their census block group, a neighborhood of roughly 600 to 3,000 people.
Highest on weeknights
Major-crime index by time of week, against the U.S. rate for the same hours.
Major crime fell 6.3% in a year; across Wisconsin it fell 11.2%
Change in expected crimes, with Wisconsin as a whole in gray. The past year uses the reporting agencies' year-to-date FBI data; 2031 is the model's projection.
Madison against U.S. places with 250,000 to 500,000 residents
34 of the 53 other places of this size have a higher major-crime index than Madison; the middle of the group is 142. The 9 nearest in population:
Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; residents in gray.
Madison 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, Monona (4 mi), is 24% below Madison's rate.
Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; distances between where residents live, in miles.
Questions about crime in Madison
What are the most common crimes in Madison?
By expected count, the most common persons and property crimes are other larceny (about 2,150 a year), shoplifting (about 2,104 a year) and theft from vehicle (about 676 a year). Compared with the U.S., shoplifting stands out most: 2.3 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. Madison's figures add up its 191 block groups. The index compares crimes per resident with the U.S. rate.
- Madison has no published incident records in our data, so its estimate relies on agency totals and neighborhood characteristics.
- 36.8% 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: 290,704. Model updated Oct 20, 2026. Release 2026-2026-10-20-2
Full method and validation·Data sources
CrimeMetric. "Crime in Madison, Wisconsin." Vorp Labs, model updated Oct 20, 2026. https://crimemetric.com/wi/madison
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Major-crime index, U.S. = 100