West Reading, PA has a D safety grade (34/100) with a violent crime rate of 440 per 100,000, 25% above the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · small city
West Reading is a small municipal reporter (4,542 on the UCR row). Per-100,000 violent and property rates are shown with PA and U.S. context.
Data updated 2026-09-05
West Reading, PA is among the highest-crime cities in the country, and earns a D PlainCrime safety grade, where violent crime runs 25% above the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, West Reading, PA shows violent crime at 440.3 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 2,531.9 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 25% above the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade D from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
Small-count caution
West Reading reported 20 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 4,542. 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.
Position in the state cohort
At 440.3 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, West Reading ranks 51 of 838 — above 787 of the 837 other Pennsylvania cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +574.2% 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.
Comparable rate records
The nearest comparable 2024 records to West Reading's 440.3 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Lower Chichester Township (445.6), Wilkes-Barre (431.6), Norristown (450.2), Pittsburgh (427.2). 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.
Offense mix
Violent offenses are 14.8% of the 135 Part I offenses reported in West Reading for 2024, against a median of 10.0% across comparable Pennsylvania cities — a gap of 4.8 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 465.3 per 100,000 in 2020 to 440.3 in 2024 (-5.4%). The highest observed value was 484.6 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 West Reading'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 20 reported violent incidents in a population of 4,542. 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 0.6 Census sq mi, West Reading logged 193.6 property and 33.7 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
West Reading's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (70% of 135 offenses; mix index 5,175).
Violent offenses are only 15% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
West Reading offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (0.6 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 | 115 | 2531.9 |
| Larceny-Theft | 94 | 2069.6 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 13 | 286.2 |
| Burglary | 8 | 176.1 |
| Arson | 0 | 0 |
| Violent Crime | 20 | 440.3 |
| Aggravated Assault | 19 | 418.3 |
| Robbery | 1 | 22 |
| 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 · fell across 4 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · fell · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 4,298 | 465.3 | 2629.1 |
| 2021 | Insufficient reporting | 4,295 | - | - |
| 2022 | Comparable | 4,512 | 66.5 | 509.8 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 4,540 | 484.6 | 1453.7 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 4,542 | 440.3 | 2531.9 |
West Reading Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind West Reading's 135 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 West Reading in population. Their populations run from 4,523 to 4,569, against 4,542 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
West Reading sits at 440.3/100K violent (grade D); the Pennsylvania cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
In 2024, West Reading reported 20 violent crimes and 115 property crimes, for a total of 135 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, West Reading's violent crime rate decreased by 9.1%, and the property crime rate increased by 74.2%.
The most common crime type in West Reading is larceny-theft, accounting for 69.6% of all reported crimes (94 incidents in 2024).
Small-city read: West Reading 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 West Reading's small city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 West Reading, PA rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.
Bulk download: city crime dataset (CSV/JSON)
Put this to use
Put the West Reading, 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. West Reading is scored as a small-city UCR reporter (4,542 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.