AUGUSTA, Maine – The state’s newly released Crime in Maine 2024 report paints a picture of declining crime across most major categories, while also underscoring a fundamental shift in how Maine now counts crime.
This year’s publication is the fourth consecutive statewide crime report based entirely on the FBI’s Incident-Based Reporting system, known as IBR, which replaced the long-standing Uniform Crime Reporting program at the end of 2020. The old UCR system, in place since the 1920s, grouped crime into just eight categories. IBR expanded that framework to 29 offense categories, dramatically reshaping how criminal activity is recorded.
State officials stress the change means today’s numbers cannot be directly compared to pre-2021 crime data. The new system uses different reporting rules and captures far more offense types, effectively resetting Maine’s long-term crime statistics. While the crimes themselves existed before, they were not counted or categorized the same way.
The shift has also fractured long-standing crime categories. Theft, once reported as a single offense, is now broken into multiple classifications such as shoplifting, purse snatching and theft from a motor vehicle. Likewise, what had been one rape category is now split into rape, sodomy and object rape. The expanded detail offers a clearer picture of criminal behavior, but it complicates year-to-year and historical comparisons.
The report also highlights another major difference: IBR data is a “living” system. Law enforcement agencies can revise and add incidents for up to two years after an initial report. As cases evolve, totals from previous years can change. Under the old UCR system, each year’s numbers were locked the following March, making trend analysis simpler but less reflective of ongoing investigations.
https://www.maine.gov/dps/msp/about/maine-crime/2024
Because of that, the FBI advises that IBR statistics be used to identify general trends rather than treated as fixed totals. Maine has also made a public online search tool available to help residents track updated crime data.
For 2024, Maine recorded 42,559 total crimes, producing an overall crime rate of 28.83 incidents per 1,000 residents.
Property crime made up the largest share, with 25,258 offenses and a rate of 17.11 per 1,000. Crimes against persons totaled 12,586, for a rate of 8.53 per 1,000, while crimes against society accounted for 4,715 incidents, or 3.20 per 1,000.
Violent crime — defined as murder, rape, aggravated assault and robbery — totaled 1,374 offenses statewide, for a rate of 0.93 per 1,000 residents.
That figure included 33 victims of murder and non-negligent manslaughter, along with 405 rapes, 780 aggravated assaults and 156 robberies.
Trend data included in the report shows statewide crime rates falling since Maine adopted the IBR system. Crimes against persons declined from 9.18 per 1,000 residents in 2021 to 8.53 in 2024. The overall crime rate dropped from 32.56 in 2021 to 28.83 in 2024.
Crimes against society decreased from 3.57 to 3.20, while property crime fell from 19.46 to 17.11 over the same four-year span.
Violent crime also declined, dropping from 1.10 per 1,000 residents in 2021 to 0.93 in 2024.
The report cautions that minor discrepancies may appear throughout the tables because data continued to be updated while the publication was compiled. The Maine State Police UCR Unit has made additional guidance and the FBI’s IBR Reporting Manual available to explain how crimes are classified and counted.
