Finding accurate Columbus crime statistics can be difficult. The FBI uses its Uniform Crime Reporting to gather comparable data on every city. Unfortunately, not all cities report accurately or completely and the reported numbers don’t always match up. For example, Columbus police reported 111 homicides in 2018, but only 109 of them are listed in the UCR data. This likely has something to do with the way that the UCR classifies homicides versus the way the city does, or because the city later updated numbers after reporting to the UCR. This is most common with the murder data, as sometimes victims die in a different year than they were injured in, or from events retroactively adding to past years. Additionally, what is reported to US by police departments does not include adjudication results, meaning they may have reported an incident as a crime that was later ruled justified in a court of law.
Having said all that, the UCR is the most consistent source and offers data back nearly 40 years for Columbus. Because of this, I have opted to use it for this page.

Click on any graph to open a larger version.

**Last Updated: 11/10/2024- Updated the 2024 homicide tracker and interactive map through October.

2024 Homicide Tracker
The Homicide Tracker is updated after each month.

Through October, homicides were down 28% from the same period in 2023 and down 45% from the same period in the record year of 2021.

2024 Interactive Homicide Map

2023 Homicide Tracker

2023 ended up with 151 homicides, which was 11 more than 2022. This increase was largely led by the month of January, which had more than double the normal homicides it typically has, and featured the most homicides of any month during the year at 19.

2023 Interactive Homicide Map

*One homicide on 10/27/2023 is not listed, as there is no available location information.

Here is the breakdown of 2023 homicide locations, victim demographics and the status of suspects. The data is accurate through 5/2/2024.

Of the 151 homicides in 2023, 72- or nearly 48%- had at least one suspect arrested.

FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Data

Violent Crime

Overall, violent crime rate has been on a downward trend the last 40 years. 2022 saw both the lowest violent crime total and rate of any year since 1985, and 2021-2022 was the largest single-year decline in violent crime in that period. This may be surprising to some as there has been much media attention and a general narrative that crime has been consistently up or going up.


Homicides are one of the few crimes that has not followed overall violent crime trends. The have been pretty significant swings in total homicides year-to-year, especially the last decade. 2021 saw both the city’s record total and record homicide rate, but it also saw one of the nation’s largest single-year declines from 2021-2022. The recent spike could possibly be attributed to the events of 2020- the pandemic, economic collapse, national protests and police response, etc.- that culminated in the 2021 peak. It remains to be seen if higher homicide totals are going to be a temporary or long-term condition.


The definition of rape was significantly expanded in 2013, so the numbers before and after that date are not directly comparable. Even so, the overall rate has remained somewhat flat over the years even as totals have increased.


Robberies have been trending down for years, and 2022 also featured both the lowest total and rate since 1985.


Aggravated assaults have also been trending down over time, but there was a significant spike that began in 2017 and peaked in 2021, but the spike was still nowhere near the totals and rates of the 1980s and 1990s. 2022, as with other crimes, saw a steep decline over 2021.

The following date breaks down violent crime incidents by both offender and victim by race, gender and age. Because some individual crimes are committed by multiple people, the total offenders will not match total reported crimes. Offender data is available since 2004 and victim data since 2010.
Violent Crime Offenders and Victims by Age

Violent Crime Offenders and Victims by Race

Violent Crime Offenders and Victims by Gender

Property Crime








Motor vehicle thefts have been the only property crime to see an increase in recent years, and it has been a fairly massive spike. This is almost entirely attributed to thefts of Kias and Hyundais. These pushed total thefts to their highest level in 17 years in 2022, but totals and rate are still below most years between the late 1980s-about 2004.

For information on Ohio’s far too many cold cases, visit
Ohio Cold Cases
You can search cases by city, date, victim name or other information.
And for a decent interactive crime map, the 10TV 10TV Crime Tracker is one where you can search through crimes based on dates, crime types and other data.

Columbus Police Statistics
Financial Data

Physical Characteristics

Columbus Murders by Census Tract by Year

2009 Murders

2008 Murders
**Coming Soon**

2007 Murders

2006 Murders

2005 Murders

To see more local population and demographics data, visit:
Population and Demographics