Photo: Petty Officer 1st Class Shawn Eggert · Public domainRecorded crime per resident is higher in Kotzebue than in 91% of U.S. towns
Property crime is lower than in 64% of U.S. towns; violent crime, lower than in only 2%. The rate the grade counts dropped 65% from 2023 to 2025. Graded on crimes Kotzebue’s police reported from 2023 to 2025, it scores D for safety: #13 of 18 graded towns in Alaska. Add to that, each year brought 11.0 violent crimes and 7.8 incidents of property crime for every 1,000 residents (8.3 and 26.0 in the rest of Alaska).
Crimes reported to the FBI per 1,000 residents a year, 2023–2025. “Rest of AK” is every other Alaska city and town in the FBI’s tables; the U.S. figure is the FBI’s national estimate as published, averaged over the three years. The FBI publishes no national homicide or robbery rate in our data, so those compare with all U.S. cities and towns in its tables.
What stands out about safety in Kotzebue
Among Alaska towns, closer to the middle
Alaska’s cities and towns report more crime than most states’, so Kotzebue’s place among its own towns differs from its national one: it reports less crime than 28% of the 18 Alaska towns we grade, against 9% nationally. Safety Grade ↓
Reported crime is falling
Crime reported per resident fell from 2023 to 2025 by more than ordinary year-to-year swings, on the grade’s own score. Trend ↓
Written from the FBI data on this page. Figures are crimes reported to police, not convictions.
What’s behind Kotzebue’s grade
Property crimes plus four times violent crimes reported to the FBI per resident, 2023–2025, on a national curve. Property crime holds Kotzebue’s grade up; violent crime pulls it down.
Reported crime per resident, 2023 to 2025
Show as a table
| Year | Kotzebue property | Rest of Alaska property | Kotzebue violent | Rest of Alaska violent |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 9.9 | 24.9 | 15.1 | 9.4 |
| 2023 | 13.7 | 26.6 | 14.7 | 8.5 |
| 2024 | 7.1 | 24.4 | 10.9 | 8.2 |
| 2025 | 2.5 | 27.2 | 7.4 | 8.3 |
Crimes per 1,000 residents
Reported crime per resident fell from 2023 to 2025, by more than ordinary year-to-year swings. Per 1,000 residents, 2022–2025, against the rest of Alaska.
Violent crime, by year and by type
Show as a table
| Year | Kotzebue | Rest of Alaska | U.S. (FBI national estimate) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 15.1 | 9.4 | 4.0 |
| 2023 | 14.7 | 8.5 | 3.9 |
| 2024 | 10.9 | 8.2 | 3.6 |
| 2025 | 7.4 | 8.3 | 3.3 |
Violent crimes per 1,000 residents
By type 2023–2025, counts
Kotzebue’s police reported 96 violent crimes to the FBI over 2023–2025, about 11.0 per 1,000 residents a year, against 8.3 in the rest of Alaska and the FBI’s national estimate of 3.6.
Crime in Kotzebue per 1,000 residents
Violent crime per 1,000 residents, 2025
Property crime per 1,000 residents, 2025
Crimes reported to police in 2025 per resident; one person can be the victim of more than one, and some reports involve visitors.
And about 7 violent crimes, in 2025. Below are 1,000 dots, one per resident; each colored dot is one reported crime.
28 crimes reported in 2025
2025 offenses reported
Offenses reported to police, not convictions. FBI Uniform Crime Reporting. The last row is counted outside the property total.
21 violent and 7 property, as reported to the FBI by Kotzebue’s police.
One person died in crashes on Kotzebue’s roads in 2019–2023
Kotzebue had 1 fatal crash in five years, in which one person died; 1 was a pedestrian.
That is about what is typical for Alaska towns of 2,500–5,000 people: at their median rate (4.5 deaths per 100,000 residents a year), a town of Kotzebue’s size would see about 1 in five years. With numbers this small, a death or two either way changes the picture, so Kotzebue’s own rate (6.7) is context, not a ranking.
Deaths are counted where the crash happened, not where the people lived: a highway through town adds through-traffic deaths, and residents’ own risk on roads elsewhere isn’t here. Town rates sit below state and U.S. rates because a third of fatal crashes happen outside any town. Road safety is described here and is not part of the Safety Grade. Source: NHTSA Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), 2019–2023.
Kotzebue and its neighbors
| Town | Grade | Violent | Property |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kotzebue | D | 11.0 | 7.8 |
Crimes reported to the FBI per 1,000 residents a year, 2023–2025.
Alaska towns of a similar size
| Town | Grade | Violent | Property |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kotzebue | D | 11.0 | 7.8 |
| Cordova | B+ | 2.0 | 3.1 |
| Petersburg | B | 1.8 | 7.7 |
| Seward | C+ | 2.9 | 13.9 |
| North Pole | C− | 4.5 | 20.0 |
| Nome | D | 11.5 | 7.1 |
The five graded Alaska towns closest to Kotzebue’s population (2,876), by grade.
How reported crime compares across the town line. Tap a town to see its safety page.
What this data can and can’t tell you
- It’s reported crime. Only incidents reported to and recorded by police appear here. Many crimes are never reported to police.
- One number for all of Kotzebue. A town-wide rate doesn’t show where incidents happen, and that can differ a lot from one part of town to another.
- Visitors count too. Incidents involving people who work, shop or visit are counted against Kotzebue’s residents, which raises the per-resident rate.
- Whose population. Rates use the FBI’s population for the department (2,839 in 2025); our figure for Kotzebue is 2,876 (2025 Census estimate).
- Gaps are real gaps. A missing year means the department didn’t report a full year, not that nothing happened.
How the grade is calculated, for every town: How TownRatings grades safety →
Questions about safety in Kotzebue
Is Kotzebue, AK safe?
On crimes reported to the FBI in 2023–2025, Kotzebue reports more crime per resident than 91% of U.S. towns, a D Safety Grade and #13 of 18 in Alaska. Its police reported 11.0 violent crimes per 1,000 residents a year, against 8.3 in the rest of Alaska and the FBI’s national estimate of 3.6.
What is the crime rate in Kotzebue?
11.0 violent and 7.8 property crimes per 1,000 residents a year, 2023–2025, as reported to the FBI. The rest of Alaska reports 8.3 and 26.0; the FBI’s national estimate is 3.6 and 17.6.
Who polices Kotzebue?
Kotzebue’s own police department, which reports to the FBI as “Kotzebue”. Its figures are the ones on this page.
Heads-up board
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Neighbors looking out for each other in Kotzebue.
Crime: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program, Crime Data Explorer: offenses known to law enforcement by city, 2025, and state and national rates. Counts are crimes reported to police, not convictions. The Safety Grade is our own summary of that data, not an official rating. Road deaths: NHTSA Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), 2019–2023. This isn’t an official statement of public safety. In an emergency, call 911.