CrimeMetric

Crime in Portage, Michigan

Major crime in Portage is 31% above the U.S. rate per resident: 21% lower for persons crimes and 42% higher for property crimes. Expected major crimes are down 15.0% from a year earlier.

Modeled estimates per resident, not counts of incidents. How we calculated this

Major crime
131
31% above the U.S. rate
41% above the Michigan rate
down 15.0% in a year
Persons crimes
79
21% below the U.S. rate
40% below the Michigan rate
up 15.3% in a year
Property crimes
142
42% above the U.S. rate
1.7 times the Michigan rate
down 17.7% in a year
Social disorder
76
24% below the U.S. rate
22% below the Michigan rate
up 5.9% in a year

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 Portage

Crime by type

Shoplifting stands out most, at 2.8 times the U.S. rate

Expected crimes per year in Portage for each type, and the index against the U.S. rate per resident.

Citywide indexWhere the middle half of residents live

IndexPer year

How crime varies across Portage

The middle half of Portage residents live in neighborhoods with a major-crime index between 34 and 127; the typical (median) resident's is 76. The citywide figure (131) is higher than that because crime concentrates in a smaller set of areas.

Map of Portage, with its census block groups shaded by major-crime index band
Block groups shaded by major-crime index, in the bar's bands below; pale gray where fewer than 100 people live. Tap one to compare it. Highways and boundaries: U.S. Census Bureau.
  • 0–5027.9%
  • 50–10039.6%
  • 100–20018.0%
  • 200–40010.9%
  • 400+3.5%

Share of residents by the index of their census block group, a neighborhood of roughly 600 to 3,000 people.

When it happens

Highest on weekday daytimes

Major-crime index by time of week, against the U.S. rate for the same hours.

Monday to Friday, 6am to 6pm185
Sunday to Thursday nights, 6pm to 6am74
Saturday and Sunday, 6am to 6pm154
Friday and Saturday nights, 6pm to 6am75
Trend and outlook

Major crime fell 15.0% in a year; across Michigan it fell 6.1%

Past yearBy 2031
Major crime-15.0%MI -6.1%-12.4%MI -11.8%
Persons crimes+15.3%MI -1.8%+0.8%MI -1.3%
Property crimes-17.7%MI -7.5%-14.0%MI -15.5%
Social disorder+5.9%MI -2.9%-2.5%MI -5.4%

Change in expected crimes, with Michigan as a whole in gray. The past year uses the reporting agencies' year-to-date FBI data; 2031 is the model's projection.

Similar-size places

Portage against U.S. places with 50,000 to 100,000 residents

133 of the 540 other places of this size have a higher major-crime index than Portage; the middle of the group is 92. The 9 nearest in population:

Paramount, CA50,326164
Portage, MI50,418131
Cypress, CA50,58888
Lawrence, IN50,54478
Windsor, CO50,43177
Pahrump, NV50,56061
McLean, VA50,61245

Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; residents in gray.

Nearby places

Portage 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, Kalamazoo (5 mi), is 1.7 times Portage's rate.

Kalamazoo5 mi227
Galesburg11 mi209
Eastwood7 mi186
Westwood6 mi164
Paw Paw15 mi135
Portage131
Plainwell16 mi121
Otsego17 mi47

Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; distances between where residents live, in miles.

Questions about crime in Portage

What are the most common crimes in Portage?

By expected count, the most common persons and property crimes are shoplifting (about 454 a year), other larceny (about 243 a year) and theft from vehicle (about 172 a year). Compared with the U.S., shoplifting stands out most: 2.8 times 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. Portage's figures add up its 37 block groups. The index compares crimes per resident with the U.S. rate.

  • Portage has no published incident records in our data, so its estimate relies on agency totals and neighborhood characteristics.
  • 57.5% 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: 50,418. Model updated Oct 20, 2026. Release 2026-2026-10-20-2

Full method and validation·Data sources

Cite this page

CrimeMetric. "Crime in Portage, Michigan." Vorp Labs, model updated Oct 20, 2026. https://crimemetric.com/mi/portage

Use these numbers in your product

Any U.S. address by API or MCP, free for 10,000 lookups a month.

Get a free API key

Nearest cities we publish

Major-crime index, U.S. = 100