Ellwood City, PA has a A safety grade (83/100) with a violent crime rate of 95 per 100,000, 73% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · small city
Ellwood City is a small municipal reporter (7,398 on the UCR row). Per-100,000 violent and property rates are shown with PA and U.S. context.
Data updated 2026-09-05
Ellwood City, PA is safer than most U.S. cities, and earns an A PlainCrime safety grade, where violent crime runs 73% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Ellwood City, PA shows violent crime at 94.6 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 811 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 73% 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
Ellwood City reported 7 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 7,398. 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.
2020–2024 direction
Across 4 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 249.1 per 100,000 in 2020 to 94.6 in 2024 (-62.0%). The highest observed value was 249.1 in 2020 and the lowest 53.2 in 2022. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Comparable rate records
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Ellwood City's 94.6 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Lansdale (94.6), Hermitage (94.4), Downingtown (95.0), Hughesville (95.1). 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.
Position in the state cohort
At 94.6 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Ellwood City ranks 328 of 838 — above 510 of the 837 other Pennsylvania cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +44.9% 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-offense composition
Larceny-theft is 95.0% of reported property offenses in Ellwood City, against a cohort median of 85.8%. The remainder is burglary (1) and motor vehicle theft (2). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Property counts dominate Ellwood City'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 7 reported violent incidents in a population of 7,398. 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.
Small-city offense counts above are voluntary UCR submissions, not neighbourhood advice. Year-to-year swings can look large when the population base is modest.
Across 2.3 Census sq mi, Ellwood City logged 25.8 property and 3 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Ellwood City's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (85% of 67 offenses; mix index 7,331).
Violent offenses are only 10% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Ellwood City offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (2.3 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 | 60 | 811 |
| Larceny-Theft | 57 | 770.5 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 2 | 27 |
| Burglary | 1 | 13.5 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 7 | 94.6 |
| Aggravated Assault | 6 | 81.1 |
| Murder | 1 | 13.5 |
| Rape | 0 | 0 |
| Robbery | 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 · fell across 4 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · fell · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 7,227 | 249.1 | 1023.9 |
| 2021 | Insufficient reporting | 7,168 | - | - |
| 2022 | Comparable | 7,517 | 53.2 | 478.9 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 7,433 | 188.3 | 914.8 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 7,398 | 94.6 | 811 |
Ellwood City Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Ellwood City's 67 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 Ellwood City in population. Their populations run from 7,263 to 7,509, against 7,398 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Ellwood City sits at 94.6/100K violent (grade A); the Pennsylvania cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
In 2024, Ellwood City reported 7 violent crimes and 60 property crimes, for a total of 67 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Ellwood City's violent crime rate decreased by 49.8%, and the property crime rate decreased by 11.3%.
The most common crime type in Ellwood City is larceny-theft, accounting for 85.1% of all reported crimes (57 incidents in 2024).
Small-city read: Ellwood City is sourced from FBI UCR Table 8 for 2024; rates use that row's population.
Small-city rows use the same per-100,000 formula; a few unreported years can leave gaps in the trend table. Verify the agency's submission on FBI.gov UCR.
Disclaimer (small city): UCR counts here are informational only. They are not a victimization probability. Source: FBI UCR Program.
Small-city rate methodology for how Ellwood City's small city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Ellwood City, PA rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.
Bulk download: city crime dataset (CSV/JSON)
Put this to use
Put the Ellwood City, 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. Ellwood City is scored as a small-city UCR reporter (7,398 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.