Crime in Lancaster, Pennsylvania
Major crime in Lancaster is 8% above the U.S. rate per resident: 26% higher for persons crimes and about the same for property crimes. Expected major crimes are down 4.1% 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.
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Drugs and alcohol stands out most, at 2.5 times the U.S. rate
Expected crimes per year in Lancaster 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 Lancaster
The middle half of Lancaster residents live in neighborhoods with a major-crime index between 58 and 125; the typical (median) resident's is 77. The citywide figure (108) is higher than that because crime concentrates in a smaller set of areas.
- 0–5015.6%
- 50–10053.0%
- 100–20025.1%
- 200–4004.6%
- 400+1.7%
Share of residents by the index of their census block group, a neighborhood of roughly 600 to 3,000 people.
Highest on Friday and Saturday nights
Major-crime index by time of week, against the U.S. rate for the same hours.
Major crime fell 4.1% 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.
Lancaster against U.S. places with 50,000 to 100,000 residents
201 of the 540 other places of this size have a higher major-crime index than Lancaster; the middle of the group is 92. The 9 nearest in population:
Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; residents in gray.
Lancaster has a higher major-crime index than 7 of its 8 nearest neighbors
The 8 nearest cities and towns we cover, by major-crime index. The closest, Millersville (3 mi), is 71% below Lancaster's rate.
Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; distances between where residents live, in miles.
Questions about crime in Lancaster
What are the most common crimes in Lancaster?
By expected count, the most common persons and property crimes are other larceny (about 353 a year), shoplifting (about 194 a year) and aggravated assault (about 188 a year). Compared with the U.S., drugs and alcohol stands out most: 2.5 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. Lancaster's figures add up its 52 block groups. The index compares crimes per resident with the U.S. rate.
- Lancaster has no published incident records in our data, so its estimate relies on agency totals and neighborhood characteristics.
- 62.1% 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: 58,484. Model updated Oct 20, 2026. Release 2026-2026-10-20-2
Full method and validation·Data sources
CrimeMetric. "Crime in Lancaster, Pennsylvania." Vorp Labs, model updated Oct 20, 2026. https://crimemetric.com/pa/lancaster
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Major-crime index, U.S. = 100
- Millersville3 mi31
- Willow Street4 mi32
- Strasburg7 mi19
- Lititz8 mi24
- Manheim10 mi89
- Columbia10 mi101
- Ephrata12 mi115
- Mount Joy12 mi23