I am in year 13 and have lived in Reading since i was 2, so i think i can gvie you a pretty decent round up of it. The suburb i live in, is quite rough, its on the back of a 'council estate' had the car broken in to 5 months ago, but in 16 years thats happened twice, and one attempted break in to the house, which my dog stoped as soon as they got in to the garden!
The university area is not a bad area at all.
Oxford road is notorious for crime, drugs, prostitution, shootings, but i go down there if i need during the day when i am in town, i have never had a problem there, but it certainly has a bad reputation and the odd shooting every 6 months or so, but like i said, during the day i have never had a problem there, and i have been there many times, but never at night (not because i wont, but because i never needed to)
Oh and Oxford road is quite a distance form the university, its on the opposite side of the town center that the uni is closeset to, so sevral miles.
The average crimes in reading are on par with the national average, well slightly higher, but less then places such as bristol. You have nothing to worry about if you come here, thou there are a large number of chavs, which is annoying but i only been started on once, and nothing bad came of it.