Waterville, ME has a C safety grade (59/100) with a violent crime rate of 142 per 100,000, 60% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · mid-size city
Waterville (16,867 people) sits in the mid-size municipal band. This page opens with per-100,000 FBI UCR rates, then ME and national benchmarks.
Data updated 2026-08-24
Waterville, ME carries a PlainCrime C safety grade with violent crime 60% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Waterville, ME shows violent crime at 142.3 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 3,023.7 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 60% 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.
Small-count caution
Waterville reported 24 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 16,867. 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 Waterville's 142.3 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Machias (144.1), Skowhegan (137.9), Winslow (149.1), Fort Fairfield (149.6). 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 142.3 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Waterville ranks 17 of 101 — above 84 of the 100 other Maine cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +144.3% against the cohort median of 58.2. 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 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 192.1 per 100,000 in 2020 to 142.3 in 2024 (-25.9%). The highest observed value was 214.8 in 2023 and the lowest 142.3 in 2024. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property-offense composition
Larceny-theft is 92.9% of reported property offenses in Waterville, against a cohort median of 84.8%. The remainder is burglary (10) and motor vehicle theft (26). Composition differences of this size usually track what kinds of places and property are present in a jurisdiction.
Property counts dominate Waterville'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 24 reported violent incidents in a population of 16,867. 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.
Mid-size municipal totals above are reported offenses, not safety advice for any single block. Reporting completeness still varies by year and agency.
Across 13.5 Census sq mi, Waterville logged 37.7 property and 1.8 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Waterville's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (89% of 534 offenses; mix index 7,914).
Violent offenses are only 4% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Waterville offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (13.5 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 | 510 | 3023.7 |
| Larceny-Theft | 474 | 2810.2 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 26 | 154.1 |
| Burglary | 10 | 59.3 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 24 | 142.3 |
| Rape | 13 | 77.1 |
| Robbery | 4 | 23.7 |
| Aggravated Assault | 4 | 23.7 |
| Murder | 3 | 17.8 |
Lead series · rose across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · fell · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 16,654 | 192.1 | 2527.9 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 16,667 | 210 | 3971.9 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 15,972 | 206.6 | 4370.1 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 15,826 | 214.8 | 3494.2 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 16,867 | 142.3 | 3023.7 |
Waterville Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Waterville's 534 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 Maine cities closest to Waterville in population. Their populations run from 12,641 to 21,144, against 16,867 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Waterville sits at 142.3/100K violent (grade C); the Maine cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
Waterville at 142.3/100K violent and 3,023.7/100K property - matched below outside Maine (≥10k pop, latest UCR vintage; not the in-state lists above).
142.3/100K here; nearest out-of-state matches.
3,023.7/100K here; violent-rate peers above excluded.
In 2024, Waterville reported 24 violent crimes and 510 property crimes, for a total of 534 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Waterville's violent crime rate decreased by 33.8%, and the property crime rate decreased by 13.5%.
The most common crime type in Waterville is larceny-theft, accounting for 88.8% of all reported crimes (474 incidents in 2024).
Mid-size read: Waterville 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 Waterville's mid-size city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Waterville, ME 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. Waterville is scored in the mid-size municipal band (16,867 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.