Methodology

How the grades work

Data sources

Incident data comes from the Seattle Police Department’s official open-data incident feed (data.seattle.gov), covering all reported crime incidents from 2024 through September 29, 2026. Population comes from the US Census 2020 block counts. Boundaries are the Seattle Police Department’s official micro-community policing areas. 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 Seattle 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 SPD 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. SPD anonymizes locations to the block level.
• Reports SPD marks “not a crime” are left out. About 11% of SPD’s feed is tagged NOT_A_CRIME (NIBRS code 999). Counting those would inflate every Seattle rate against the other cities.
• Areas are SPD’s own Micro Community Policing Plan neighborhoods. SPD names the neighborhood on each report, so the assignment is the department’s, not ours. Reports marked “UNKNOWN” or out-of-jurisdiction (about 2%) are dropped.
• Some locations are withheld. SPD publishes REDACTED instead of an address on sensitive reports; those still count toward the neighborhood but never appear in the hot-block list.

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.