Dover by the Numbers from AskDover
In the latest state data, Dover's reported crime fell 10% in 2023, mostly in drug offenses
Offenses fell from 5,107 to 4,578. The most serious violent offenses stayed within normal variation.
State figures stop at 2023 and count only offenses known to Dover Police (source). Dover Police's 2024 and 2025 figures are below.
- 4,578
- offenses in 2023, about 12.5 a day and the second-lowest count in 22 years.
- 27.0%
- below the 2007 peak of 6,270.
- 1 in 15
- was murder, rape by force, robbery or aggravated assault.
Hover or tap for any year. The state added offense types in 2013 and 2015.
Source: NIBRS Crime Report Totals, State of Delaware. Download the data (CSV).
See the numbers as a table
| Year | Offenses | Population | Rate per 1,000 | Rough range |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2002 | 5,491 | Not used | Not used | Not used |
| 2003 | 5,988 | Not used | Not used | Not used |
| 2004 | 5,589 | Not used | Not used | Not used |
| 2005 | 5,567 | Not used | Not used | Not used |
| 2006 | 6,016 | Not used | Not used | Not used |
| 2007 | 6,270 | Not used | Not used | Not used |
| 2008 | 6,135 | Not used | Not used | Not used |
| 2009 | 5,739 | Not used | Not used | Not used |
| 2010 | 5,847 | 35,890 | 162.9 | 158.7 to 167.1 |
| 2011 | 5,813 | 36,303 | 160.1 | 156.0 to 164.2 |
| 2012 | 5,671 | 36,728 | 154.4 | 150.4 to 158.4 |
| 2013 | 5,394 | 36,736 | 146.8 | 142.9 to 150.7 |
| 2014 | 4,939 | 36,975 | 133.6 | 129.9 to 137.3 |
| 2015 | 5,294 | 36,999 | 143.1 | 139.2 to 146.9 |
| 2016 | 5,402 | 37,271 | 144.9 | 141.1 to 148.8 |
| 2017 | 4,688 | 37,463 | 125.1 | 121.6 to 128.7 |
| 2018 | 4,903 | 38,089 | 128.7 | 125.1 to 132.3 |
| 2019 | 5,292 | 38,334 | 138.0 | 134.3 to 141.8 |
| 2020 | 4,403 | 39,417 | 111.7 | 108.4 to 115.0 |
| 2021 | 4,716 | 39,746 | 118.7 | 115.3 to 122.0 |
| 2022 | 5,107 | 39,911 | 128.0 | 124.5 to 131.5 |
| 2023 | 4,578 | 40,099 | 114.2 | 110.9 to 117.5 |
Drug offenses account for 59.0% of the one-year drop
Without drug offenses, the drop is 4.9% against 10.4% overall, still larger than chance alone. Serious property offenses edged up, within normal variation, and the data does not say why anything changed (source).
An outlined bar means the change is within normal year-to-year variation.
Source: NIBRS Crime Report Totals.
See the numbers as a table
| Category | 2022 | 2023 | Change | Change % | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Violent | 1,484 | 1,366 | -118 | -8.0 | larger than chance alone |
| Serious property | 1,800 | 1,837 | +37 | 2.1 | within normal variation |
| Drug | 702 | 390 | -312 | -44.4 | larger than chance alone |
| Other property and social | 1,121 | 985 | -136 | -12.1 | larger than chance alone |
Only drug offenses fell to a new low
Serious property offenses were the largest group in 2023, at 40.1% of the total (source).
Violent
Serious property
Drug
Other property and social
The state's "violent" category is broad: 2023 includes 827 simple assaults and harassment and 151 intimidation offenses.
Source: NIBRS Crime Report Totals.
See the numbers as a table
| Year | Violent | Serious property | Drug | Other |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 1,239 | 2,193 | 637 | 1,778 |
| 2011 | 1,286 | 2,310 | 601 | 1,616 |
| 2012 | 1,288 | 2,239 | 586 | 1,558 |
| 2013 | 1,148 | 2,146 | 777 | 1,323 |
| 2014 | 1,107 | 1,905 | 684 | 1,243 |
| 2015 | 1,227 | 2,031 | 724 | 1,312 |
| 2016 | 1,314 | 1,922 | 791 | 1,375 |
| 2017 | 1,109 | 1,704 | 736 | 1,139 |
| 2018 | 1,214 | 1,839 | 719 | 1,131 |
| 2019 | 1,412 | 2,116 | 606 | 1,158 |
| 2020 | 1,261 | 1,603 | 555 | 984 |
| 2021 | 1,428 | 1,544 | 735 | 1,009 |
| 2022 | 1,484 | 1,800 | 702 | 1,121 |
| 2023 | 1,366 | 1,837 | 390 | 985 |
The most serious violent offenses barely moved: 320 to 312
That change of 8 is within normal variation. The 2023 count includes two murders, too few to show a trend (source).
Hover or tap for any year.
Source: NIBRS Crime Report Totals.
See the numbers as a table
| Year | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Murder, rape by force, robbery, aggravated assault | 338 | 342 | 354 | 320 | 312 |
Shoplifting passed simple assault and harassment as the most common offense in 2023
Shoplifting rose from 826 to 911, larger than chance alone, but only just (source).
Highlighted: at least 2 times normal chance variation, a rough guide. Under 20 offenses is too few to read.
Source: NIBRS Crime Report Totals. Download all computed figures (JSON).
See the numbers as a table
| Offense | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2022 to 2023 | % cleared |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Simple assault and harassment | 898 | 742 | 864 | 931 | 827 | -104 | 86.0 |
| Shoplifting | 975 | 681 | 609 | 826 | 911 | +85 | 37.1 |
| Vandalism and property damage | 667 | 641 | 645 | 644 | 617 | -27 | 31.3 |
| Other theft (not shoplifting) | 958 | 772 | 807 | 768 | 719 | -49 | 23.5 |
| Drug and drug equipment | 606 | 555 | 735 | 702 | 390 | -312 | 97.2 |
| Aggravated assault | 273 | 285 | 306 | 269 | 267 | -2 | 73.4 |
| Motor vehicle theft | 86 | 80 | 81 | 172 | 152 | -20 | 17.8 |
| Intimidation | 121 | 138 | 159 | 176 | 151 | -25 | 66.2 |
| Weapon law violations | 129 | 142 | 183 | 237 | 151 | -86 | 90.1 |
| Fraud | 259 | 139 | 113 | 148 | 137 | -11 | 42.3 |
| Sex offenses, forcible | 42 | 38 | 57 | 64 | 80 | +16 | 61.3 |
| Burglary | 88 | 63 | 45 | 30 | 49 | +19 | 71.4 |
| Robbery | 51 | 27 | 24 | 24 | 23 | -1 | 82.6 |
| Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter | 4 | 9 | 4 | 3 | 2 | -1 | 100.0 |
Compared with 2019, 2023 motor vehicle theft was up 66 and fraud down 122
Rises are in the accent color. Other theft and drug offenses also fell by more than chance.
Source: NIBRS Crime Report Totals.
See the numbers as a table
| Offense | 2019 | 2023 | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Burglary | 88 | 49 | -39 | -44.3 |
| Fraud | 259 | 137 | -122 | -47.1 |
| Motor vehicle theft | 86 | 152 | +66 | 76.7 |
| Robbery | 51 | 23 | -28 | -54.9 |
| Sex offenses, forcible | 42 | 80 | +38 | 90.5 |
Police cleared 54.4% of offenses, but the share varies widely by type
"Cleared" means an arrest, or a suspect police could not arrest for a reason such as death. It is not a conviction, and it does not measure how well a type of offense is handled (definition, Crime in Delaware).
Each bar's full track is every offense in that category.
Source: NIBRS Crime Report Totals.
See the numbers as a table
| Category | Offenses | Cleared | % cleared |
|---|---|---|---|
| Violent | 1,366 | 1,092 | 79.9 |
| Serious property | 1,837 | 573 | 31.2 |
| Drug | 390 | 379 | 97.2 |
| Other property and social | 985 | 447 | 45.4 |
After 2023, the state reports only county totals
This is all of Kent County, not Dover. Kent recorded 15,010 offenses in 2023 and 15,394 in 2025, up 2.6% (Crime in Delaware).
What Dover Police reported since
These are the department's own figures, and they count different things from the state data, so they are not on the chart above. (All annual reports). For recent incidents, see the Dover Police crime map.
In the table, injured persons plus property damage adds to 44 in 2023 and 44 in 2025, not the 46 and 47 crime reports listed.
Source: Dover Police 2025 annual report, page 17; the 2024 report, page 18, gives the same earlier years.
See the numbers as a table
| Shootings | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shots fired events | 60 | 55 | 58 | 61 |
| Crime reports | 40 | 46 | 46 | 47 |
| Injured persons | 22 | 12 | 19 | 17 |
| Property damage | 18 | 32 | 27 | 27 |
| Percent cleared | 68 | 63 | 54 | 64 |
| Offense | 2024 | 2024 cleared | 2025 | 2025 cleared |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Homicides | 6/7 in the table, 7 in the text | 100% | 3 among shootings, in the text only. Total not given | Not given |
| Robberies | 47 | 81% | 23, in the text only | 83% |
| Burglaries | 60 | 73% | 60, in the text only | 93% |
| Rapes | 41 | 78% | Not given | Not given |
The 2024 table lists homicides as 6/7, and its text says seven.
Sources: 2024 report, pages 18 and 19; 2025 report, page 17.
Questions worth asking
- Why did drug offenses fall by 44.4% in one year?The data can't say. Ask Dover Police.
- When will newer Dover figures be published?Ask the Statistical Analysis Center. It last updated the file March 3, 2025.
- Do these trends come up at City Council?See the city calendar and past meetings.
- Want to check our work?See the state's file and our yearly figures.
How we did this
- Offenses: the State of Delaware dataset "NIBRS Crime Report Totals by Jurisdiction", filtered to the jurisdiction named "Dover", which means Dover Police (source). The state last updated this file on March 3, 2025. We saved the copy we used and added up every row for each year, using the FBI "Group A" list of 24 offense categories.
- Rate: offenses divided by residents, times 1,000. So 114.2 in 2023 (162.9 in 2010) means about that many offenses for every 1,000 people living here, not that many people affected.
- Population: Census Bureau estimates for Dover city, available here from 2010, which is why rates start then. 2010 to 2019 use the 2020 series (source), and 2020 onward use the 2025 series (source). The two disagree for 2020 by 1,218 people (38,199 and 39,417). On the older number the 2020 rate would be 115.3, not 111.7.
- Per day: a year's count divided by its days.
- Offense type charts: with this many types, one may be flagged by chance alone. Burglary was flagged, yet 2022 was its lowest year in the table. The five in the slope chart are every type under 300 a year whose change since 2019 was larger than chance alone.
- Clearances: one arrest can clear many offenses. In 2023, 2,491 of 4,578 offenses were cleared, with 1,332 adult and 204 juvenile arrests (source).
- Dover Police figures: typed from the department's annual reports, with each page checked by script. We use no figure we could not find in the PDF.
- Normal variation: counts move by chance even when nothing changed. We flag a change when it is at least 2 times that normal variation. The table's rough range is a 95% range built the same way. Both are guides, not measures of error in the records.
- County context: Dover Police recorded 30.5% of Kent's 2023 offenses, with 21.1% of its residents (population). The state warns against comparing places, so this is not a comparison of risk. Kent's 2023 count is 15,010 in both state sources; our rate is 78.9 per 1,000 using Census residents (190,241), and the state's is 79.39.
- AI and review: this report is AI-assisted. An AI model wrote the text and code from a computed data file, and a person reviews it before it is published. Every number on the page is checked by script against that file, and the scripts and saved raw data are kept with this report.
What this data can't tell you
- State figures for Dover after 2023. The state's file stops there.
- Why anything changed. Counts reflect reporting and police work as well as events. We make no claim about causes.
- Crime never reported. Only offenses that reached police are counted.
- Incidents or victims. These count offenses or charges, and one incident can produce several (Crime in Delaware).
- Your own risk. The rate counts only residents, and says nothing about any street. This report maps no locations.
- Other agencies. State Police, Capitol Police and Delaware State University are listed separately (source).
- How Dover compares with other towns. The state and the FBI warn against it (Crime in Delaware). We do not rank places.
- Perfectly consistent long trends. Offense types were added in 2013 and 2015 and labels changed in 2021 (source). The state urges caution with 2020 and 2021 because of the pandemic, and some counts have coding problems (Crime in Delaware).