Butler, PA has a D safety grade (36/100) with a violent crime rate of 501 per 100,000, 42% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · mid-size city
Butler (12,973 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
Butler, PA is among the highest-crime cities in the country, and earns a D PlainCrime safety grade, where violent crime runs 42% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Butler, PA shows violent crime at 501 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 1,611 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 42% above the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade D from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
Position in the state cohort
At 501.0 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Butler ranks 42 of 838 — above 796 of the 837 other Pennsylvania cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +667.1% 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.
Comparable rate records
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Butler's 501.0 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are West Homestead (505.1), Stowe Township (506.9), Hummelstown (489.7), Moosic (483.8). 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.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 23.7% of the 274 Part I offenses reported in Butler for 2024, against a median of 10.0% across comparable Pennsylvania cities — a gap of 13.7 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.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 406.5 per 100,000 in 2020 to 501.0 in 2024 (+23.3%). The highest observed value was 575.7 in 2023 and the lowest 31.3 in 2021. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property-offense composition
Larceny-theft is 75.6% of reported property offenses in Butler, against a cohort median of 85.9%. The remainder is burglary (34) and motor vehicle theft (17). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Property counts dominate Butler'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.
Mid-size municipal totals above are reported offenses, not safety advice for any single block. Reporting completeness still varies by year and agency.
Across 2.7 Census sq mi, Butler logged 76.9 property and 23.9 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Butler leans on larceny-theft at 58% of reported offenses, with a moderate mix index of 3,999.
Violent offenses are 24% of the municipal total; property offenses still dominate the count.
Butler offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (2.7 sq mi); 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 | 209 | 1611 |
| Larceny-Theft | 158 | 1217.9 |
| Burglary | 34 | 262.1 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 17 | 131 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 65 | 501 |
| Aggravated Assault | 60 | 462.5 |
| Robbery | 4 | 30.8 |
| Murder | 1 | 7.7 |
| Rape | 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 · rose · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 12,792 | 406.5 | 1250.8 |
| 2021 | Insufficient reporting | 12,760 | - | - |
| 2022 | Comparable | 13,112 | 152.5 | 274.6 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 13,027 | 575.7 | 1235.9 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 12,973 | 501 | 1611 |
Butler Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Butler's 274 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 Butler in population. Their populations run from 12,709 to 13,256, against 12,973 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Butler sits at 501/100K violent (grade D); the Pennsylvania cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Butler at 501/100K violent and 1,611/100K property - matched below outside Pennsylvania (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
501/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
1,611/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
In 2024, Butler reported 65 violent crimes and 209 property crimes, for a total of 274 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Butler's violent crime rate decreased by 13%, and the property crime rate increased by 30.4%.
The most common crime type in Butler is larceny-theft, accounting for 57.7% of all reported crimes (158 incidents in 2024).
Mid-size read: Butler 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 Butler's mid-size city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Butler, PA rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.
Bulk download: city crime dataset (CSV/JSON)
Put this to use
Put the Butler, 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. Butler is scored in the mid-size municipal band (12,973 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.