Crime in Reading, Massachusetts
Major crime in Reading is 66% below the U.S. rate per resident: 88% lower for persons crimes and 61% lower for property crimes. Expected major crimes are down 1.2% from a year earlier.
Modeled estimates per resident, not counts of incidents. How we calculated this
Index: crimes per resident compared with the U.S., where 100 is the U.S. rate and 200 is twice it.
Check an address in Reading
Every crime type in Reading is near or below the U.S. rate
Expected crimes per year in Reading for each type, and the index against the U.S. rate per resident.
Citywide indexWhere the middle half of residents live
Property crimes
Social disorder
How crime varies across Reading
The middle half of Reading residents live in neighborhoods with a major-crime index between 17 and 36; the typical (median) resident's is 22. The citywide figure (34) is higher than that because crime concentrates in a smaller set of areas.
- 0–5081.3%
- 50–1008.6%
- 100–20010.1%
- 200–4000.0%
- 400+0.0%
Share of residents by the index of their census block group, a neighborhood of roughly 600 to 3,000 people.
Highest on weekday daytimes
Major-crime index by time of week, against the U.S. rate for the same hours.
Major crime fell 1.2% in a year; across Massachusetts it fell 5.7%
Change in expected crimes, with Massachusetts as a whole in gray. The past year uses the reporting agencies' year-to-date FBI data; 2031 is the model's projection.
Reading against U.S. places with 25,000 to 50,000 residents
872 of the 960 other places of this size have a higher major-crime index than Reading; the middle of the group is 77. The 9 nearest in population:
Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; residents in gray.
Reading has a higher major-crime index than 2 of its 8 nearest neighbors
The 8 nearest cities and towns we cover, by major-crime index. The closest, Wakefield (3 mi), is 12% below Reading's rate.
Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; distances between where residents live, in miles.
Questions about crime in Reading
What are the most common crimes in Reading?
By expected count, the most common persons and property crimes are other larceny (about 80 a year), shoplifting (about 22 a year) and burglary (about 20 a year). Compared with the U.S., other larceny stands out most: 39% below the U.S. rate per resident.
How we calculated this
Each police agency's crimes, as reported to the FBI, are spread across the census block groups it serves using population, jobs, points of interest and, where available, local incident records. Reading's figures add up its 17 block groups. The index compares crimes per resident with the U.S. rate.
- Reading has no published incident records in our data, so its estimate relies on agency totals and neighborhood characteristics.
- 10.1% of residents live in block groups whose estimate has high confidence (80% interval within about 5x).
- Rates are per resident, so places where many people work or visit but few live, such as downtowns, airports and stadiums, can read high.
- Disorderly conduct and trespassing are modeled, because the FBI records them only through arrests.
- Residents: 26,074. Model updated Oct 20, 2026. Release 2026-2026-10-20-2
Full method and validation·Data sources
CrimeMetric. "Crime in Reading, Massachusetts." Vorp Labs, model updated Oct 20, 2026. https://crimemetric.com/ma/reading
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Major-crime index, U.S. = 100
- Wakefield3 mi30
- Stoneham3 mi51
- Wilmington4 mi42
- Lynnfield4 mi38
- Woburn4 mi59
- Burlington5 mi96
- Melrose6 mi39
- Pinehurst6 mi25