St. Louis City Neighborhood Crime Reports

Last week I posted information about using crime maps to learn about crime rates in St. Louis.

While the crime maps are very useful, they don’t tell you how much crime is committed annually in a particular area.

St. Louis City publishes crimes data for each neighborhood or region. These crime reports let you drill down to focus on what type of crime is of most concern in a particular area, and to see if crime is increasing or decreasing.

St. Louis City Crime Rates:

The St. Louis City Police Department publishes crime statistics on 88 neighborhoods and regions.

I’ve put together a snapshot of the crime statistics for 3 popular neighborhoods – Benton Park, Central West End and Lafayette Square – so you can see how the numbers vary throughout the city.

One item that is missing from these reports is factoring in the number of residents in each area so you can see the amount of crime per person. Obviously, large neighborhoods with high density housing like the Central West End will have higher raw numbers than a smaller community like Lafayette Square, but that doesn’t mean it is more dangerous on any given block.

In all 3 areas, larceny was the most common crime.

Larceny is theft, and the statistics are broken down into subcategories:

Pickpocket
Purse snatching
Shoplifting
From motor vehicle
Motor vehicle parts
Bicycles
From buildings
From coin operated
Other

Across St. Louis City, 1/3 of larceny crime in 2012 and 2013 fell into the From Motor Vehicle category. Another 1/3 of the larceny crime was split almost equally between Motor Vehicle Parts and From Buildings (which includes garages).

The full crime report also gives detailed information about the time of day when burglaries occurred and the type of weapon used in aggravated assaults.

As a city resident and real estate agent who spends a lot of time in many parts of the city, I appreciate that these statistics are public.

If you are thinking of buying a home in the city, I suggest you take a good look at the statistics and crime maps for the neighborhoods you are considering before making an offer.