Upper Merion Township, PA has a C safety grade (58/100) with a violent crime rate of 124 per 100,000, 65% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · mid-size city
Upper Merion Township (36,408 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
Upper Merion Township, PA is close to the national middle for violent crime, and earns a C PlainCrime safety grade, where violent crime runs 65% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Upper Merion Township, PA shows violent crime at 123.6 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 3,754.7 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 65% 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.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 59.5 per 100,000 in 2020 to 123.6 in 2024 (+107.6%). The highest observed value was 135.1 in 2022 and the lowest 14.9 in 2021. 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 Upper Merion Township's 123.6 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are West Sadsbury Township (123.0), Monroeville (122.5), Macungie (122.5), Etna (122.4). 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 123.6 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Upper Merion Township ranks 261 of 838 — above 577 of the 837 other Pennsylvania cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +89.2% 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.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 3.2% of the 1,412 Part I offenses reported in Upper Merion Township for 2024, against a median of 10.0% across comparable Pennsylvania cities — a gap of 6.8 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-offense composition
Larceny-theft is 94.6% of reported property offenses in Upper Merion Township, against a cohort median of 85.8%. The remainder is burglary (26) and motor vehicle theft (48). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Property counts dominate Upper Merion Township'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.
Upper Merion Township's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (92% of 1,412 offenses; mix index 8,406).
Violent offenses are only 3% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Upper Merion Township offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (when validated); 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 | 1,367 | 3754.7 |
| Larceny-Theft | 1,293 | 3551.4 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 48 | 131.8 |
| Burglary | 26 | 71.4 |
| Arson | 1 | 2.7 |
| Violent Crime | 45 | 123.6 |
| Aggravated Assault | 24 | 65.9 |
| Robbery | 21 | 57.7 |
| 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 · rose · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 33,595 | 59.5 | 2220.6 |
| 2021 | Insufficient reporting | 33,651 | - | - |
| 2022 | Comparable | 34,792 | 135.1 | 4150.4 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 35,304 | 119 | 4223.3 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 36,408 | 123.6 | 3754.7 |
Upper Merion Township Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Upper Merion Township's 1,412 reported offenses (4-year span 2020-2024, with internal gaps).
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 Pennsylvania cities closest to Upper Merion Township in population. Their populations run from 33,944 to 38,819, against 36,408 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Upper Merion Township sits at 123.6/100K violent (grade C); the Pennsylvania cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Upper Merion Township at 123.6/100K violent and 3,754.7/100K property - matched below outside Pennsylvania (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
123.6/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
3,754.7/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
Out-of-state cities whose violent rate moved a similar share from 2023→2024 (+3.9% here); level-based peers above are excluded.
In 2024, Upper Merion Township reported 45 violent crimes and 1,367 property crimes, for a total of 1,412 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Upper Merion Township's violent crime rate increased by 3.9%, and the property crime rate decreased by 11.1%.
The most common crime type in Upper Merion Township is larceny-theft, accounting for 91.6% of all reported crimes (1,293 incidents in 2024).
Mid-size read: Upper Merion Township 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 Upper Merion Township's mid-size city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Upper Merion Township, PA rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.
Bulk download: city crime dataset (CSV/JSON)
Put this to use
Put the Upper Merion Township, 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. Upper Merion Township is scored in the mid-size municipal band (36,408 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.