Crime in Reading, Pennsylvania
Major crime in Reading is 15% above the U.S. rate per resident: about the same for persons crimes and 19% higher for property crimes. Expected major crimes are about flat 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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Murder stands out most, at 2.6 times 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 76 and 123; the typical (median) resident's is 99.
- 0–507.8%
- 50–10043.5%
- 100–20040.4%
- 200–4006.9%
- 400+1.3%
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 rose 0.1% 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.
Reading against U.S. places with 50,000 to 100,000 residents
183 of the 540 other places of this size have a higher major-crime index than Reading; the middle of the group is 92. The 9 nearest in population:
Major-crime index per resident, U.S. = 100; residents in gray.
Reading has a higher major-crime index than 5 of its 8 nearest neighbors
The 8 nearest cities and towns we cover, by major-crime index. The closest, West Reading (1 mi), is 34% above 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 685 a year), theft from vehicle (about 343 a year) and burglary (about 239 a year). Compared with the U.S., murder stands out most: 2.6 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. Reading's figures add up its 70 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.
- 62.5% 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: 96,379. Model updated Oct 20, 2026. Release 2026-2026-10-20-2
Full method and validation·Data sources
CrimeMetric. "Crime in Reading, Pennsylvania." Vorp Labs, model updated Oct 20, 2026. https://crimemetric.com/pa/reading
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Major-crime index, U.S. = 100
- West Reading1 mi154
- Mount Penn2 mi194
- Wyomissing3 mi118
- Laureldale3 mi47
- Shillington3 mi53
- Mohnton5 mi37
- Sinking Spring5 mi42
- Birdsboro8 mi29