When people wonder how New Glarus compares to the rest of Wisconsin or the country on crime, the answer isn’t as simple as pulling up a chart.

Unlike larger cities, small communities such as New Glarus do not always appear in recent FBI “city-by-city” crime tables. That’s largely due to the nationwide transition from the old Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) system to the newer National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), which changed how crime data is submitted and published. Participation and reporting formats shifted beginning in 2021, and not every agency’s data appears in the same way it once did.

So instead of relying on older federal city tables, a clearer picture comes from statewide and national trend data.

According to the Wisconsin Department of Justice’s most recent statewide summaries, overall crime in Wisconsin has been trending downward in several key categories. Violent crime remains far below levels seen in the 1990s, and property crime has steadily declined over the past decade, though motor vehicle theft spiked during the pandemic years before easing more recently.