Spencer, WV has a A safety grade (81/100) with a violent crime rate of 51 per 100,000, 86% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · small municipal
Spencer's UCR row covers a small municipal population (1,966). Rates below are per 100,000 and sit next to WV and U.S. averages.
Data updated 2026-08-24
Spencer, WV carries a PlainCrime A safety grade with violent crime 86% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Spencer, WV shows violent crime at 50.9 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 1,627.7 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 86% 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
Spencer reported 1 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 1,966. 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 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 298.4 per 100,000 in 2020 to 50.9 in 2024 (-83.0%). The highest observed value was 356.8 in 2021 and the lowest 50.5 in 2023. 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 Spencer's 50.9 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Barboursville (46.2), Hurricane (59.2), Winfield (42.4), New Martinsville (59.4). 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 50.9 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Spencer ranks 39 of 49 — above 10 of the 48 other West Virginia cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is -74.3% against the cohort median of 197.8. Cities that did not report, or that reported implausibly low totals, are excluded from this cohort rather than counted as low-crime.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 3.0% of the 33 Part I offenses reported in Spencer for 2024, against a median of 9.7% across comparable West Virginia cities — a gap of 6.7 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.
Property counts dominate Spencer'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 1 reported violent incidents in a population of 1,966. 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.
On a small municipal row, small denominators make rates sensitive to a handful of incidents. Figures are reported totals, not neighbourhood advice.
Across 1.2 Census sq mi, Spencer logged 25.6 property and 0.8 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Spencer's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (88% of 33 offenses; mix index 7,778).
Violent offenses are only 3% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Spencer offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (1.2 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 | 32 | 1627.7 |
| Larceny-Theft | 29 | 1475.1 |
| Burglary | 2 | 101.7 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 1 | 50.9 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 1 | 50.9 |
| Aggravated Assault | 1 | 50.9 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
| Rape | 0 | 0 |
| Robbery | 0 | 0 |
Lead series · fell across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · fell · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 2,011 | 298.4 | 2983.6 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 1,962 | 356.8 | 2089.7 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 2,022 | 148.4 | 2621.2 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 1,981 | 50.5 | 4038.4 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 1,966 | 50.9 | 1627.7 |
Spencer Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Spencer's 33 reported offenses (5-year span 2020-2024).
This agency reports via NIBRS, the incident-based system that captures more detail per offense (multiple crimes per incident, victim/offender data) than the older summary counts.
Crime rates read differently at different scales, so these are the West Virginia cities closest to Spencer in population. Their populations run from 1,321 to 2,645, against 1,966 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Spencer sits at 50.9/100K violent (grade A); the West Virginia cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
In 2024, Spencer reported 1 violent crimes and 32 property crimes, for a total of 33 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Spencer's violent crime rate increased by 0.8%, and the property crime rate decreased by 59.7%.
The most common crime type in Spencer is larceny-theft, accounting for 87.9% of all reported crimes (29 incidents in 2024).
Micro-municipal read: Spencer's FBI UCR Table 8 row (2024) is the only source for the rates above.
With a small population base, per-100,000 rates amplify sparse counts. Incomplete submissions are excluded from rankings. See FBI.gov UCR for the raw Table 8 file.
Disclaimer (small municipal): small-base rates are especially easy to misread. Informational only - not advice. Source: FBI UCR Program.
Micro-municipal rate methodology for how Spencer's small municipal row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Spencer, WV rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.
Bulk download: city crime dataset (CSV/JSON)
Every figure on PlainCrime is rendered directly from FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) source data, no number is typed in by an editor. Spencer is scored as a small municipal UCR reporter (1,966 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.