Crime is down in the ‘hood

Madison Park is not experiencing an uptick in crime, as some might think. In fact, according to new year-to-date crime statistics released by the Seattle Police today, major crimes in our area are actually down 9% for the first six months of this year as compared to the same period last year.

This good news does not apply to the East Precinct as a whole, however, which—like the City itself—is experiencing a higher level of crime in 2009. So we can consider ourselves a bit of a crime backwater, though not all of the numbers are good. Unfortunately, multi-year crime comparisons are not possible for Madison Park because the police department changed its reporting districts in 2008. Neighborhood crime had previously been reported on the basis of census districts, one of which includes all of Madison Park. Now, however, our neighborhood is reported as part of a larger police beat known as Charlie 3:

So, in addition to Madison Park, these crime statistics also cover Montlake, Madison Valley south to Union Street, Denny Blaine, and part of Madrona. In this reporting area we’ve had no homicides this year or last, and there’s been only one reported rape in each year. While burglaries significantly increased in 2009 (from 5 to 11), assaults were down (from 13 to 7). This is the month-by-month picture for violent crimes on the beat for both years:

The non-violent crime picture is better. These crimes include larceny and theft, motor vehicle theft, and burglary, and as you can see (at least if you click on the graph to maximize it), we are tracking below last year’s crime levels in every month this year, with a particularly big fall off in June:

Looking at the City crime map, you can see how relatively crime-free we really are (the lighter-green areas are the low-crime beats and the darker-green areas fit into the lock-the-doors-and-bar-the-windows category):

Madison Park had 34 crimes per 1,000 residents last year, according to Seattle Magazine, placing us in the top ten low-crime Seattle neighborhoods.

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[The crime density map above is a feature of the City of Seattle's My Neighborhood Map webpage.]