Crime rates for Bellingham, WA

With a crime rate of 94 per one thousand residents, Bellingham has one of the highest crime rates in America compared to all communities of all sizes - from the smallest towns to the very largest cities. One's chance of becoming a victim of either violent or property crime here is one in 11. Within Washington, more than 90% of the communities have a lower crime rate than Bellingham.

Separately, it is always interesting and important to compare a city's crime rate with those of similarly sized communities - a fair comparison as larger cities tend to have more crime. NeighborhoodScout has done just that. With a population of 66,815, Bellingham has a combined rate of violent and property crime that is very high compared to other places of similar population size. Regardless of whether Bellingham does well or poorly compared to all other cities and towns in the US of all sizes, compared to places with a similar population, it fares badly. Few other communities of this size have a crime rate as high as Bellingham.

The crime data that NeighborhoodScout used for this analysis are the seven offenses from the uniform crime reports, collected by the FBI from 17,000 local law enforcement agencies, and include both violent and property crimes, combined.

Now let us turn to take a look at how Bellingham does for violent crimes specifically, and then how it does for property crimes. This is important because the overall crime rate can be further illuminated by understanding if violent crime or property crimes (or both) are the major contributors to the general rate of crime in Bellingham.

NeighborhoodScout's research shows that Bellingham's violent crime rate is 3 per one thousand inhabitants, which is about average for all communities in America, across all population sizes. Violent crimes that are tracked and included in this rate are armed robbery, aggravated assault, forcible (not statutory) rape, and murder and non-negligent manslaughter. Roughly similar to the national average, our analysis shows that your chance of becoming a victim of violent crime in Bellingham is one in 365.

In addition, NeighborhoodScout found that a lot of the crime that takes place in Bellingham is property crime. Property crimes that are tracked for this analysis are burglary, larceny over fifty dollars, motor vehicle theft, and arson. In Bellingham, your chance of becoming a victim of a property crime is one in 11, which is a rate of 92 per one thousand population.