Bethlehem Township, PA has a A safety grade (83/100) with a violent crime rate of 72 per 100,000, 80% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · mid-size city
Bethlehem Township (26,492 people) sits in the mid-size municipal band. This page opens with per-100,000 FBI UCR rates, then PA and national benchmarks.
Data updated 2026-09-05
Bethlehem Township, PA is safer than most U.S. cities, and earns an A PlainCrime safety grade, where violent crime runs 80% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Bethlehem Township, PA shows violent crime at 71.7 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 1,151.3 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 80% below the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade A from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
Small-count caution
Bethlehem Township reported 19 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 26,492. At this volume one additional or one fewer report moves the per-100,000 rate noticeably, so the figure is better read as a data point than as a precise measurement, and year-to-year swings here are expected.
Comparable rate records
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Bethlehem Township's 71.7 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Wyomissing (71.8), Lower Merion Township (71.6), Aspinwall (72.2), Central Berks Regional (72.2). These are same-year agency submissions that pass the same completeness screen, not a claim that the cities have identical conditions. They make the cohort position above checkable against named records instead of a generic state average.
2020–2024 direction
Across 4 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 90.2 per 100,000 in 2020 to 71.7 in 2024 (-20.4%). The highest observed value was 90.2 in 2020 and the lowest 38.0 in 2023. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 5.9% of the 324 Part I offenses reported in Bethlehem Township for 2024, against a median of 10.0% across comparable Pennsylvania cities — a gap of 4.1 points. Offense mix is shaped by which agencies report and how incidents are classified as well as by the underlying offenses, so it describes the reported record rather than a settled difference in conditions.
Position in the state cohort
At 71.7 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Bethlehem Township ranks 403 of 838 — above 435 of the 837 other Pennsylvania cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +9.8% against the cohort median of 65.3. Cities that did not report, or that reported implausibly low totals, are excluded from this cohort rather than counted as low-crime.
Property counts dominate Bethlehem Township's FBI UCR Table 8 municipal row. Per-100,000 rates use the reporting-year population on that row; cities that fail the completeness test stay out of rate rankings. A citywide figure rarely describes any single neighbourhood inside the municipal boundary.
Based on 19 reported violent incidents in a population of 26,492. At this volume, one additional or one fewer report can shift the rate and letter grade noticeably; small-city crime counts are inherently more volatile year to year than large-city counts, so treat this grade as a data point, not a precise ranking.
Mid-size municipal totals above are reported offenses, not safety advice for any single block. Reporting completeness still varies by year and agency.
Bethlehem Township's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (84% of 324 offenses; mix index 7,066).
Violent offenses are only 6% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Bethlehem Township offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (when validated); mix index is HHI x 10,000 on the offense-type shares above. Distinct from the per-100K rates in the hero.
| Offense | Count | Rate /100K |
|---|---|---|
| Property Crime | 305 | 1151.3 |
| Larceny-Theft | 271 | 1023 |
| Burglary | 18 | 67.9 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 16 | 60.4 |
| Arson | 2 | 7.5 |
| Violent Crime | 19 | 71.7 |
| Aggravated Assault | 11 | 41.5 |
| Rape | 4 | 15.1 |
| Robbery | 4 | 15.1 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
The chart omits 2021 rather than drawing an unsupported zero or partial-coverage dip. The table preserves the year and marks the gap.
Lead series · rose across 4 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · fell · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 24,403 | 90.2 | 975.3 |
| 2021 | Insufficient reporting | 24,626 | - | - |
| 2022 | Comparable | 26,039 | 61.4 | 1017.7 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 26,337 | 38 | 1268.2 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 26,492 | 71.7 | 1151.3 |
Bethlehem Township Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Bethlehem Township's 324 reported offenses (4-year span 2020-2024, with internal gaps).
This agency reports via the traditional Summary Reporting System (SRS): aggregate monthly offense counts rather than incident-level detail.
Crime rates read differently at different scales, so these are the Pennsylvania cities closest to Bethlehem Township in population. Their populations run from 26,020 to 26,801, against 26,492 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Bethlehem Township sits at 71.7/100K violent (grade A); the Pennsylvania cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Bethlehem Township at 71.7/100K violent and 1,151.3/100K property - matched below outside Pennsylvania (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
71.7/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
1,151.3/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
In 2024, Bethlehem Township reported 19 violent crimes and 305 property crimes, for a total of 324 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Bethlehem Township's violent crime rate increased by 88.7%, and the property crime rate decreased by 9.2%.
The most common crime type in Bethlehem Township is larceny-theft, accounting for 83.6% of all reported crimes (271 incidents in 2024).
Mid-size read: Bethlehem Township figures are FBI UCR CIUS Table 8 (vintage 2024), population-adjusted per 100,000.
Denominators are the reporting-year population on the municipal row. Incomplete years are dropped from rankings. Confirm at FBI Crime Data Explorer and Census.gov QuickFacts.
Disclaimer (mid-size municipal): figures are informational, not advice. FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program is the source. Consult a professional before decisions.
Mid-size rate methodology for how Bethlehem Township's mid-size city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Bethlehem Township, PA rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.
Bulk download: city crime dataset (CSV/JSON)
Put this to use
Put the Bethlehem Township, PA FBI UCR record to work: compare peers, open the state atlas, or look up another city.
A citywide UCR rate is a starting point, not a neighbourhood verdict: read the full profile and the year coverage notes before drawing conclusions.
Every figure on PlainCrime is rendered directly from FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) source data, no number is typed in by an editor. Bethlehem Township is scored in the mid-size municipal band (26,492 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.