Crime in Columbia, Pennsylvania
Major crime in Columbia is about the U.S. rate per resident: 27% lower for persons crimes and 8% higher for property crimes. Expected major crimes are down 8.6% 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 Columbia
Shoplifting stands out most, at 1.7 times the U.S. rate
Expected crimes per year in Columbia 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 Columbia
The middle half of Columbia residents live in neighborhoods with a major-crime index between 83 and 162; the typical (median) resident's is 97.
- 0–5017.1%
- 50–10039.7%
- 100–20043.2%
- 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 weeknights
Major-crime index by time of week, against the U.S. rate for the same hours.
Major crime fell 8.6% in a year; across Pennsylvania it fell 8.6%
Change in expected crimes, with Pennsylvania as a whole in gray. The past year uses the reporting agencies' year-to-date FBI data; 2031 is the model's projection.
Columbia against U.S. places with 10,000 to 25,000 residents
659 of the 2,149 other places of this size have a higher major-crime index than Columbia; the middle of the group is 72. The 9 nearest in population:
Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; residents in gray.
Columbia has a higher major-crime index than 6 of its 8 nearest neighbors
The 8 nearest cities and towns we cover, by major-crime index. The closest, Mount Joy (5 mi), is 77% below Columbia's rate.
Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; distances between where residents live, in miles.
Questions about crime in Columbia
What are the most common crimes in Columbia?
By expected count, the most common persons and property crimes are other larceny (about 57 a year), shoplifting (about 57 a year) and theft from vehicle (about 20 a year). Compared with the U.S., shoplifting stands out most: 1.7 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. Columbia's figures add up its 7 block groups. The index compares crimes per resident with the U.S. rate.
- Columbia has no published incident records in our data, so its estimate relies on agency totals and neighborhood characteristics.
- 17.3% 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: 10,492. Model updated Oct 20, 2026. Release 2026-2026-10-20-2
Full method and validation·Data sources
CrimeMetric. "Crime in Columbia, Pennsylvania." Vorp Labs, model updated Oct 20, 2026. https://crimemetric.com/pa/columbia
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 keyNearest cities we publish
Major-crime index, U.S. = 100
- Mount Joy5 mi23
- Millersville8 mi31
- Elizabethtown10 mi48
- Lancaster10 mi108
- Manheim10 mi89
- East York11 mi209
- Willow Street12 mi32
- Lititz13 mi24