The Lebanon City Police Department has the 164th safest jurisdiction Pennsylvania, according to a Jan. 19 report released by the security industry trade association National Council for Home Safety and Security.

The report, Safest Cities in Pennsylvania – 2020, ranks Pennsylvania communities by the total amount of crime reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for each jurisdiction, both violent and non-violent, in 2018.

It uses a crime rate of the amount of crime per 1,000 people in a community. It also takes into account police adequacy statistics (total crimes/number of police employees) from law enforcement agencies in its final safety score.

The Lebanon City Police Department ranked 164 on the list and North Lebanon Township Police Department ranked 160.

3,381 communities nationwide were eligible to be reviewed in the report, out of a total of 9,251 possible communities. Jurisdictions that failed to submit a complete crime report to the FBI and communities with populations under 10,000 were not included. Out of that 3,381, only 2,831 communities provided the total crimes/number of police employees data to determine police adequacy.

209 communities from Pennsylvania were included on the list.

With a population of 25,816, the City of Lebanon reported 83 violent crimes and 469 property crimes over 2018. The overall crime rate per 1,000 people was 21.38, compared to PA’s overall crime rate of 14.9. The violent crime rate in the City of Lebanon was 3.22. In North Lebanon Township, it was 2.41.

It is also important to note that Pennsylvania’s crime rate is significantly lower than national averages, based on FBI data.

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Update: Thanks to reader Michael McKenna who pointed out that the many of the “locations” on the list are police departments and not municipalities. We have updated the article to clarify this detail.

Emily Bixler was born and raised in Lebanon and now reports on local government. In her free time, she enjoys playing piano and going for hikes.

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