Methodology

How the grades work

Data sources

Incident data comes from the Los Angeles Police Department’s official open-data incident feed (data.lacity.org), covering all reported crime incidents from 2025 through September 18, 2026. Population comes from the US Census 2020 block counts. Boundaries are the City of Los Angeles GeoHub’s official neighborhoods. Data was last refreshed October 1, 2026; we refresh monthly.

The formula

For each neighborhood we compute, over the trailing 12 months:

• Overall rate — reported incidents per 1,000 residents
• Violent rate — murder, rape and sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated assault per 1,000 residents
• Composite score — violent rate × 0.7 + overall rate × 0.3

Neighborhoods are ranked by composite score and graded on percentile bands: top 10% = A, to 30% = B+, to 50% = B, to 70% = C, to 90% = D, bottom 10% = F. Grades compare LA neighborhoods to each other — an F does not mean it is unsafe to walk there, and an A does not mean crime never happens.

Honest limitations

• Reported incidents only. Crimes that are never reported to LAPD are not in the data, and reporting rates differ by neighborhood and offense type.
• Daytime population isn’t counted. Areas with few residents but heavy visitor traffic (downtown, nightlife strips, parks) show inflated per-resident rates. We flag neighborhoods under 3,000 residents.
• Incident ≠ conviction. The feed records reports, not case outcomes.
• Block coordinates are approximate. LAPD anonymizes locations to the block level.
• City of Los Angeles only. LAPD does not police Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, Culver City, Pasadena, Long Beach or unincorporated county areas, so none of them are covered.
• No year-over-year trend yet. LAPD switched to a new NIBRS records system during 2024, and reporting only settled in January 2025. Comparing against 2024 would show a rise that is the system changing, not crime. Trends appear once two settled years exist.
• Neighborhood lines are the Los Angeles Times’ Mapping L.A. boundaries, published through the city’s GeoHub — widely used, but not legal city districts.
• Locations are blurred to the block. LAPD publishes a hundred-block point, not an address. About 8% of incidents land within 5 m of a neighborhood border; those are split between both sides rather than handed to one.

What this is — and isn’t

SafeNeighborhoods is an informational research tool for people making their own housing, travel, and investment decisions. It is not legal, real-estate, or lending advice; it is not a prediction of risk to any individual; and it must not be used to make decisions about tenants, borrowers, or employees. Housing decisions are governed by the Fair Housing Act — this site grades places, never people.