Watsontown, PA has a A+ safety grade (90/100) with a violent crime rate of 45 per 100,000, 87% below the national average.
Watsontown's UCR row covers a small municipal population (2,207). Rates below are per 100,000 and sit next to PA and U.S. averages.
Watsontown, PA carries a PlainCrime A+ safety grade with violent crime 87% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Watsontown, PA shows violent crime at 45.3 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 679.7 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 87% 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.
The verdict
Watsontown earns an A+ safety grade: violent crime runs 87% below the U.S. average, placing it among the safest cities in the country.
Based on 1 reported violent incidents in a population of 2,207. 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-count caution
Watsontown reported 1 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 2,207. 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 Watsontown's 45.3 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Resa Regional (45.1), Clarks Summit (45.7), Brockway (44.9), Collier Township (44.8). 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 45.3 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Watsontown ranks 495 of 838 — above 343 of the 837 other Pennsylvania cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is -31.5% against the cohort median of 66.1. 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 6.3% of the 16 Part I offenses reported in Watsontown for 2024, against a median of 10.0% across comparable Pennsylvania cities — a gap of 3.8 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.
2020–2024 direction
Across 5 comparable reporting years, the rate moved from 44.6 per 100,000 in 2020 to 45.3 in 2024 (+1.5%). The highest observed value was 135.1 in 2023 and the lowest 0.0 in 2021. Years whose submission failed the completeness test are left out of this comparison rather than plotted as change.
Property counts dominate Watsontown'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 2,207. 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.
| Offense | Count | Rate /100K |
|---|---|---|
| Property Crime | 15 | 679.7 |
| Larceny-Theft | 14 | 634.3 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 1 | 45.3 |
| Burglary | 0 | 0 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 1 | 45.3 |
| Aggravated Assault | 1 | 45.3 |
| 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 · fell across 4 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · rose · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 2,241 | 44.6 | 1204.8 |
| 2021 | Insufficient reporting | 2,232 | - | - |
| 2022 | Comparable | 2,237 | 44.7 | 804.6 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 2,220 | 135.1 | 1171.2 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 2,207 | 45.3 | 679.7 |
Watsontown's crime figures on this page originate from Watsontown Police Department's submission to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Program.
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 Watsontown in population. Their populations run from 2,194 to 2,242, against 2,207 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
These Pennsylvania cities report the closest violent-crime rates to Watsontown's 45.3/100K (same FBI UCR vintage rules; size peers above are excluded so the two lists stay distinct).
Micro-municipal read: Watsontown'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 Watsontown's small municipal row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Watsontown, PA 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. Watsontown is scored as a small municipal UCR reporter (2,207 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.