Photo: Jeffrey Beall · CC BY 4.0Des Moines goes ungraded: its recorded crime
Raton, 35 miles away, is the nearest town with a Safety Grade (C). The FBI holds no crime figures for Des Moines alone for 2023–2025, so it can’t be graded.
The nearest New Mexico towns with a Safety Grade
Straight-line distance from the center of Des Moines. Nearby towns can differ a lot from Des Moines.
Each town’s own police figures, per 1,000 residents a year, 2023–2025.
No one died in a crash on Des Moines’s roads in 2019–2023
That is about what is typical for New Mexico towns of 2,500–5,000 people: at their median rate (7.8 deaths per 100,000 residents a year), a town of Des Moines’s size would see about 0 in five years. With numbers this small, a death or two either way changes the picture, so Des Moines’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.
Des Moines 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 Des Moines
Is Des Moines, NM safe?
There is no Safety Grade for Des Moines. Des Moines has no FBI crime figures of its own for 2023–2025, so there is nothing to grade it on. The nearest New Mexico towns with a grade are Raton (C, 35 mi), Clayton (B, 44 mi), Taos (D−, 100 mi).
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 Des Moines.
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.