Swarthmore, PA has a A safety grade (85/100) with a violent crime rate of 92 per 100,000, 74% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · small city
Swarthmore is a small municipal reporter (6,535 on the UCR row). Per-100,000 violent and property rates are shown with PA and U.S. context.
Data updated 2026-09-05
Swarthmore, PA is safer than most U.S. cities, and earns an A PlainCrime safety grade, where violent crime runs 74% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Swarthmore, PA shows violent crime at 91.8 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 658 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 74% 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
Swarthmore reported 6 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 6,535. 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 Swarthmore's 91.8 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are West Hills Regional (91.9), Hollidaysburg (91.5), Brighton Township (91.4), Independence Township, Beaver County (90.8). 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.
Position in the state cohort
At 91.8 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Swarthmore ranks 335 of 838 — above 503 of the 837 other Pennsylvania cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +40.6% 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.
2020–2024 direction
Across 4 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 94.3 per 100,000 in 2020 to 91.8 in 2024 (-2.6%). The highest observed value was 94.3 in 2020 and the lowest 0.0 in 2022. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property counts dominate Swarthmore'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 6 reported violent incidents in a population of 6,535. 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 1.4 Census sq mi, Swarthmore logged 30.7 property and 4.3 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Swarthmore's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (82% of 49 offenses; mix index 6,835).
Violent offenses are only 12% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Swarthmore offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (1.4 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 | 43 | 658 |
| Larceny-Theft | 40 | 612.1 |
| Burglary | 2 | 30.6 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 1 | 15.3 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 6 | 91.8 |
| Aggravated Assault | 6 | 91.8 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
| 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 · rose across 4 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · fell · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 6,364 | 94.3 | 518.5 |
| 2021 | Insufficient reporting | 6,391 | - | - |
| 2022 | Comparable | 6,567 | 0 | 213.2 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 6,473 | 61.8 | 401.7 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 6,535 | 91.8 | 658 |
Swarthmore Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Swarthmore's 49 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 Swarthmore in population. Their populations run from 6,455 to 6,592, against 6,535 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Swarthmore sits at 91.8/100K violent (grade A); the Pennsylvania cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
In 2024, Swarthmore reported 6 violent crimes and 43 property crimes, for a total of 49 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Swarthmore's violent crime rate increased by 48.5%, and the property crime rate increased by 63.8%.
The most common crime type in Swarthmore is larceny-theft, accounting for 81.6% of all reported crimes (40 incidents in 2024).
Small-city read: Swarthmore 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 Swarthmore's small city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Swarthmore, PA rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.
Bulk download: city crime dataset (CSV/JSON)
Put this to use
Put the Swarthmore, 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. Swarthmore is scored as a small-city UCR reporter (6,535 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.