FBI report shows rise, fall of violent crimes in Pennsylvania's midsized cities :: 09/28/2016

No matter if it's murders, rapes, assaults or property crimes, there are enforcement areas that police departments in Pennsylvania's midsized cities need to work on, according to the FBI.

The FBI recently released its annual report of crimes recorded by law enforcement agencies from around the country in 2015. The report -- Crime in the United States, 2015-- indicates there was a 3.9 percent increase in violent crimes in 2015.

Violent crimes include murder, nonnegligent manslaughter, rape, robbery and aggravated assault. In Pennsylvania, the number of violent crimes rose from 314.1 incidents per 100,000 inhabitants in 2014 to 315.1 in 2015.

Were Pennsylvania's three largest cities more violent in 2015?

FBI statistics show that while Philadelphia struggled to control violent crime in 2015, Pittsburgh and Allentown experienced noticeable decreases.

PennLive looked at a number of midsized cities around Pennsylvania to see if the number of crimes increased or decreased. The cities being considered include York, Reading, Lancaster and Scranton.

No new information for Harrisburg was made available. FBI said that the police department "did not provide sufficient data to be published."

Here is a breakdown of crime statistics for Pennsylvania's midsized cities:

York

Population: 43,864

Violent crime down: The number of violent crimes decreased by more than 19 percent. There were 388 violent crimes in 2014 and 325 in 2015.
Big drop in aggravated assaults: Aggravated assaulted dropped by more than 60 percent from year to year. There were 189 aggravated assaulted in 2014 and 118 in 2015.
Fewer property crimes: The number of property crimes dropped from 1,444 in 2014 to 1,389 in 2015. That's a decrease of about 4 percent

Lancaster

Population: 59,295

Violent crimes rose: Lancaster experienced a rise in violent crimes from 403 in 2014 to 472 in 2015. That's an increase of 14.6 percent year over year.
Rapes increase: The number of rapes jumped by 12 in 2015. There were 68 rapes reported in 2014 and 80 reported in 2015 -- an increase of 17.6 percent.
Burglaries decrease: The number of burglaries in Lancaster went from 347 in 2014 to 255 in 2015. That results in a decrease of more than 26 percent.

Reading

Population: 87,744

Drop in violent crimes: There were 760 violent crimes reported in Reading in 2014, compared to 700 in 2015. That's a decrease of 8.5 percent year over year.
Murders rise: There were 13 murders or nonnegligent manslaughters in 2015, a rise from 9 the previous year.
Rapes decrease 55 percent: The number of rapes dropped significantly in Reading from 55 in 2014 to 33 in 2015.

Scranton

Population: 75,087

Murders drop to 0: The number of Scranton murders went from four in 2014 to zero in 2015.
Rapes rose: Rapes in Scranton rose more than 43 percent year over year from 21 in 2014 to 37 in 2015.
Aggravated assaults decreased: Aggravated assaults went down from 112 in 2014 to 95 in 2015.

For more information, read the FBI's crime breakdown for all of Pennsylvania's towns and cities here.

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