Understanding St. Louis: Total Crime Index, Violent Crimes and Property Crimes in City Neighborhoods

The previous article, Understanding St. Louis: Total Crime Index and Crime-Ridden Neighborhoods, highlighted how raw crime counts can distort our impression of city neighborhoods and the prevalence of crime. To best understand the material, it's essential to read that article before considering the information below.

Adding the measure of neighborhood population to raw crime counts, as done in the previous article, improves our understanding of crime statistics. But what about the type of crimes and our perception of safety? The FBI uniform crime report includes both crimes against people and crimes against property. The prevalence of particular types of crimes shape perceptions of safety. In many neighborhoods, the high number of larceny-thefts skew the crime index and the number of crimes per 1,000 residents. In this article we move from raw crime numbers and crimes per 1,000 residents, to considering crimes against persons and crimes against property per 1,000 residents.

Considering crimes per 1,000 residents provides a starting point and demostrates how raw crime numbers can be deceptive. For example, the central city Kings Oak neighborhood reported just 12 crimes counted for the crime index in the first half of 2012, but it also is home to just 180 residents. Ranked 79, last, by the crime index, Kings Oak rises to 20 with 67 crimes per 1,000 residents. The Central West End and Bevo Mill each drop 54 places.