Photo: Quintin Soloviev · CC BY 4.0Laurel reports more crime per resident than 90% of U.S. towns
On crimes reported to the FBI by Laurel’s police in 2023–2025, it grades D for safety: #19 of 26 graded towns in Montana.
Crimes reported to the FBI per 1,000 residents a year, 2023–2025. “Rest of MT” is every other Montana 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 Laurel
Among Montana towns, closer to the middle
Montana’s cities and towns report more crime than most states’, so Laurel’s place among its own towns differs from its national one: it reports less crime than 27% of the 26 Montana towns we grade, against 10% nationally. Safety Grade ↓
Written from the FBI data on this page. Figures are crimes reported to police, not convictions.
What’s behind Laurel’s grade
Property crimes plus four times violent crimes reported to the FBI per resident, 2023–2025, on a national curve. Both violent and property crime are higher than in most U.S. towns; violent crime is the closer of the two to typical.
For every 1,000 residents, about 31 property crimes reported
And about 3 violent crimes, in 2025. Below are 1,000 dots, one per resident; each colored dot is one reported crime.
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.
Violent crime, by year and by type
Laurel’s police reported 96 violent crimes to the FBI over 2023–2025, about 4.4 per 1,000 residents a year, against 5.6 in the rest of Montana and the FBI’s national estimate of 3.6.
Show as a table
| Year | Laurel | Rest of Montana | U.S. (FBI national estimate) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 4.5 | 6.0 | 4.0 |
| 2023 | 4.9 | 5.8 | 3.9 |
| 2024 | 5.4 | 5.4 | 3.6 |
| 2025 | 3.0 | 5.5 | 3.3 |
Violent crimes per 1,000 residents
By type 2023–2025, counts
Reported crime is steady
Reported crime per resident was steady from 2023 to 2025: the change is within ordinary year-to-year swings. Per 1,000 residents, 2022–2025, against the rest of Montana.
Show as a table
| Year | Laurel property | Rest of Montana property | Laurel violent | Rest of Montana violent |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 32.9 | 31.0 | 4.5 | 6.0 |
| 2023 | 30.9 | 29.4 | 4.9 | 5.8 |
| 2024 | 36.0 | 25.3 | 5.4 | 5.4 |
| 2025 | 30.9 | 22.5 | 3.0 | 5.5 |
Crimes per 1,000 residents
246 crimes reported in 2025
22 violent and 224 property, as reported to the FBI by Laurel’s police.
2025 offenses reported
Offenses reported to police, not convictions. FBI Uniform Crime Reporting. The last row is counted outside the property total.
One person died in crashes on Laurel’s roads in 2019–2023
Laurel had 1 fatal crash in five years, in which one person died.
That is about what is typical for Montana towns of 5,000–25,000 people: at their median rate (3.5 deaths per 100,000 residents a year), a town of Laurel’s size would see about 1 in five years. With numbers this small, a death or two either way changes the picture, so Laurel’s own rate (2.8) 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.
Laurel and its neighbors
How reported crime compares across the town line. Tap a town to see its safety page.
| Town | Grade | Violent | Property |
|---|---|---|---|
| Laurel | D | 4.4 | 32.6 |
Crimes reported to the FBI per 1,000 residents a year, 2023–2025.
Montana towns of a similar size
| Town | Grade | Violent | Property |
|---|---|---|---|
| Laurel | D | 4.4 | 32.6 |
| Miles City | C+ | 2.6 | 11.2 |
| Columbia Falls | C+ | 2.7 | 14.9 |
| Sidney | C | 5.5 | 6.7 |
| Lewistown | C− | 6.1 | 9.7 |
| Polson | D− | 9.7 | 31.5 |
The five graded Montana towns closest to Laurel’s population (7,205), by grade.
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 Laurel. 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 Laurel’s residents, which raises the per-resident rate.
- Whose population. Rates use the FBI’s population for the department (7,258 in 2025); our figure for Laurel is 7,205 (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 Laurel
Is Laurel, MT safe?
On crimes reported to the FBI in 2023–2025, Laurel reports more crime per resident than 90% of U.S. towns, a D Safety Grade and #19 of 26 in Montana. Its police reported 4.4 violent crimes per 1,000 residents a year, against 5.6 in the rest of Montana and the FBI’s national estimate of 3.6.
What is the crime rate in Laurel?
4.4 violent and 32.6 property crimes per 1,000 residents a year, 2023–2025, as reported to the FBI. The rest of Montana reports 5.6 and 25.7; the FBI’s national estimate is 3.6 and 17.6.
Is crime going up or down in Laurel?
Reported crime per resident was steady from 2023 to 2025: the change is within ordinary year-to-year swings.
Who polices Laurel?
Laurel’s own police department, which reports to the FBI as “Laurel”. Its figures are the ones on this page.
Heads-up board
Neighbors looking out for each other in Laurel.
Your answer becomes a post in Town Square.
Please don’t name or describe individuals. In an emergency, call 911.
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.