Photo: Billwhittaker · CC BY-SA 3.0Safety in Harlan: figures, but no grade
Harlan has no FBI crime figures of its own for 2023–2025, so there is nothing to grade it on. Atlantic, 24 miles away, is the nearest town with a Safety Grade (C−).
For every 1,000 residents, about 3 property crimes reported
Violent crime per 1,000 residents, 2022
Property crime per 1,000 residents, 2022
Crimes reported to police in 2022 per resident; one person can be the victim of more than one, and some reports involve visitors.
And fewer than 1 violent crime, in 2022. Below are 1,000 dots, one per resident; each colored dot is one reported crime.
The years Harlan’s police reported
Show as a table
| Year | Harlan | Rest of Iowa | Harlan | Rest of Iowa |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 3.0 | 19.2 | 0.4 | 3.7 |
| 2023 | not reported | 20.0 | not reported | 3.6 |
| 2024 | not reported | 17.9 | not reported | 3.1 |
| 2025 | not reported | 15.8 | not reported | 2.9 |
Crimes per 1,000 residents
Crimes reported to the FBI per 1,000 residents, against the rest of Iowa. A year the department didn’t report in full is a gap, not a zero.
17 crimes reported in 2022
2022 offenses reported
Offenses reported to police, not convictions. FBI Uniform Crime Reporting. The last row is counted outside the property total.
2 violent and 15 property, as reported to the FBI by Harlan’s police.
The nearest Iowa towns with a Safety Grade
| Town | Grade | Distance | Violent | Property |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Atlantic | C− | 24 mi | 3.2 | 19.5 |
| Denison | B+ | 25 mi | 1.4 | 6.9 |
| Missouri Valley | B | 30 mi | 2.0 | 8.3 |
| Carroll | B | 38 mi | 0.7 | 12.6 |
| Carter Lake | D | 39 mi | 5.8 | 38.6 |
| Council Bluffs | D | 39 mi | 4.6 | 25.8 |
Straight-line distance from the center of Harlan. Nearby towns can differ a lot from Harlan.
Each town’s own police figures, per 1,000 residents a year, 2023–2025.
One person died in crashes on Harlan’s roads in 2019–2023
Harlan had 1 fatal crash in five years, in which one person died.
That is about what is typical for Iowa towns of 2,500–5,000 people: at their median rate (0.0 deaths per 100,000 residents a year), a town of Harlan’s size would see about 0 in five years. With numbers this small, a death or two either way changes the picture, so Harlan’s own rate (4.1) 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.
Harlan and its neighbors
| Town | Grade | Violent | Property |
|---|
Crimes reported to the FBI per 1,000 residents a year, 2023–2025.
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 Harlan. 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 Harlan’s residents, which raises the per-resident rate.
- Whose population. Rates use the FBI’s population for the department (4,936 in 2022); our figure for Harlan is 4,859 (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 Harlan
Is Harlan, IA safe?
There is no Safety Grade for Harlan. The nearest Iowa towns with a grade are Atlantic (C−, 24 mi), Denison (B+, 25 mi), Missouri Valley (B, 30 mi).
Who polices Harlan?
Harlan’s own police department, which reports to the FBI as “Harlan”. Its figures are the ones on this page.
Heads-up board
Your answer becomes a post in Town Square.
Please don’t name or describe individuals. In an emergency, call 911.
Neighbors looking out for each other in Harlan.
Crime: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program, Crime Data Explorer: offenses known to law enforcement by city, 2022, 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.