Columbia, PA has a C safety grade (53/100) with a violent crime rate of 297 per 100,000, 16% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · mid-size city
Columbia (10,445 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
Columbia, PA is higher-crime than most U.S. cities, and earns a C PlainCrime safety grade, where violent crime runs 16% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Columbia, PA shows violent crime at 296.8 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 2,029.7 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 16% below the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade C from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
Position in the state cohort
At 296.8 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Columbia ranks 86 of 838 — above 752 of the 837 other Pennsylvania cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +354.4% 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 Columbia's 296.8 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Highspire (295.9), Titusville (292.2), Sharpsville (291.7), Brownsville (288.9). 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 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 367.1 per 100,000 in 2020 to 296.8 in 2024 (-19.2%). The highest observed value was 376.4 in 2023 and the lowest 19.4 in 2021. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property counts dominate Columbia'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 2.4 Census sq mi, Columbia logged 87.8 property and 12.8 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Columbia's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (74% of 243 offenses; mix index 5,756).
Violent offenses are only 13% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Columbia offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (2.4 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 | 212 | 2029.7 |
| Larceny-Theft | 181 | 1732.9 |
| Burglary | 16 | 153.2 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 15 | 143.6 |
| Arson | 2 | 19.1 |
| Violent Crime | 31 | 296.8 |
| Aggravated Assault | 27 | 258.5 |
| Robbery | 4 | 38.3 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
| 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 · fell · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 10,351 | 367.1 | 801.9 |
| 2021 | Insufficient reporting | 10,285 | - | - |
| 2022 | Comparable | 10,116 | 108.7 | 919.3 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 10,095 | 376.4 | 2020.8 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 10,445 | 296.8 | 2029.7 |
Columbia Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Columbia's 243 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 Columbia in population. Their populations run from 10,243 to 10,616, against 10,445 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Columbia sits at 296.8/100K violent (grade C); the Pennsylvania cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Columbia at 296.8/100K violent and 2,029.7/100K property - matched below outside Pennsylvania (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
296.8/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
2,029.7/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
In 2024, Columbia reported 31 violent crimes and 212 property crimes, for a total of 243 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Columbia's violent crime rate decreased by 21.1%, and the property crime rate increased by 0.4%.
The most common crime type in Columbia is larceny-theft, accounting for 74.5% of all reported crimes (181 incidents in 2024).
Mid-size read: Columbia 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 Columbia's mid-size city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Columbia, PA rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.
Bulk download: city crime dataset (CSV/JSON)
Put this to use
Put the Columbia, 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. Columbia is scored in the mid-size municipal band (10,445 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.