Photo: PopePompus · CC BY-SA 4.0Policing Oak Hills: who reports, and what
Burlington, 4 miles away, is the nearest town with a Safety Grade (C−). The surrounding 10 miles hold 2 graded places to compare with. Oak Hills has no police department of its own: it’s an unincorporated community (a census-designated place) in Des Moines County. The Des Moines County Sheriff’s Office reports to the FBI for the parts of the county without police of their own, so there are no figures for Oak Hills alone, and no Safety Grade.
What stands out about safety in Oak Hills
Policed by the county
Oak Hills is a census-designated place, with no town government. Crimes there are reported to the FBI inside the Des Moines County Sheriff’s Office’s totals for the county. County police ↓
Counts, not rates
The FBI doesn’t publish how many people the Des Moines County Sheriff’s Office covers, so its totals can’t be turned into a per-resident rate or a grade for Oak Hills. County police ↓
The nearest graded towns
The closest Iowa towns with their own police figures are Burlington (C−, 4 mi), West Burlington (D−, 5 mi), Fort Madison (C, 14 mi). Nearby towns can differ a lot from Oak Hills. Nearest ↓
Written from the FBI data on this page. Figures are crimes reported to police, not convictions.
What the Des Moines County Sheriff’s Office reports
Reports to the FBI for the parts of Des Moines County without police of their own, which include Oak Hills.
Property crimes
Violent crimes
2025 offenses reported by the Des Moines County Sheriff’s Office
Counts, not rates: the FBI doesn’t publish how many people each agency covers. FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, Tables 10–11.
Crimes reported to the FBI for the whole area the department covers, by year.
The nearest Iowa towns with a Safety Grade
| Town | Grade | Distance | Violent | Property |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Burlington | C− | 4 mi | 4.1 | 18.0 |
| West Burlington | D− | 5 mi | 2.5 | 95.9 |
| Fort Madison | C | 14 mi | 3.1 | 18.8 |
| Mount Pleasant | B | 25 mi | 1.3 | 9.4 |
| Keokuk | C | 27 mi | 3.4 | 16.7 |
| Fairfield | B+ | 46 mi | 1.3 | 6.7 |
Straight-line distance from the center of Oak Hills. Nearby towns can differ a lot from Oak Hills.
Each town’s own police figures, per 1,000 residents a year, 2023–2025.
No one died in a crash on Oak Hills’s roads in 2019–2023
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 Oak Hills’s size would see about 0 in five years. With numbers this small, a death or two either way changes the picture, so Oak Hills’s own rate (0.0) 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.
Oak Hills 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.
- A county agency covers a wide area. Its totals mix many communities, so they say little about any one of them.
- 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 Oak Hills
Is Oak Hills, IA safe?
There is no Safety Grade for Oak Hills. The nearest Iowa towns with a grade are Burlington (C−, 4 mi), West Burlington (D−, 5 mi), Fort Madison (C, 14 mi).
Who polices Oak Hills?
The Des Moines County Sheriff’s Office. Oak Hills is an unincorporated community, and the department reports to the FBI for the parts of Des Moines County without police of their own.
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 Oak Hills.
Crime: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program, Crime Data Explorer: offenses known to law enforcement by city, 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.