Crime rates for Portland, OR

About Portland crime rates

With a crime rate of 56 per one thousand residents, Portland has one of the highest crime rates in America compared to all communities of all sizes - from the smallest towns to the very largest cities. One's chance of becoming a victim of either violent or property crime here is one in 18. Within Oregon, more than 95% of the communities have a lower crime rate than Portland.

How does the crime rate in Portland compare to similar sized communities across America? When NeighborhoodScout compared Portland with other communities its size, we found that the crime rate was near the average for all other communities of similar size. So, whether Portland's crime rate is high or low compared to all places in the US, when we control for population size and compare it to places that are similar in size, it is near the middle of the pack in crime rate; not much more or less dangerous, and about what we would expect from the statistics.

The crime data that NeighborhoodScout used for this analysis are the seven offenses from the uniform crime reports, collected by the FBI from 17,000 local law enforcement agencies, and include both violent and property crimes, combined.

Now let us turn to take a look at how Portland does for violent crimes specifically, and then how it does for property crimes. This is important because the overall crime rate can be further illuminated by understanding if violent crime or property crimes (or both) are the major contributors to the general rate of crime in Portland.

From our analysis, we discovered that violent crime in Portland occurs at a rate higher than in most communities of all population sizes in America. The chance that a person will become a victim of a violent crime in Portland; such as armed robbery, aggravated assault, rape or murder; is 1 in 196. This equates to a rate of 5 per one thousand inhabitants.

In addition, NeighborhoodScout found that a lot of the crime that takes place in Portland is property crime. Property crimes that are tracked for this analysis are burglary, larceny over fifty dollars, motor vehicle theft, and arson. In Portland, your chance of becoming a victim of a property crime is one in 20, which is a rate of 51 per one thousand population.

Importantly, we found that Portland has one of the highest rates of motor vehicle theft in the nation according to our analysis of FBI crime data. This is compared to communities of all sizes, from the smallest to the largest. In fact, your chance of getting your car stolen if you live in Portland is one in 184.