Crime rates for Seattle, WA

About Seattle crime rates

With a crime rate of 60 per one thousand residents, Seattle 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 17. Within Washington, more than 91% of the communities have a lower crime rate than Seattle.

Importantly, when you compare Seattle to other communities of similar population, then Seattle crime rate (violent and property crimes combined) is quite a bit higher than average. Regardless of how Seattle does relative to all communities in America of all sizes, when NeighborhoodScout compared it to communities of similar population size, its crime rate per thousand residents stands out as higher than most.

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 Seattle 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 Seattle.

For Seattle, we found that the violent crime rate is one of the highest in the nation, across communities of all sizes (both large and small). Violent offenses tracked included forcible rape, murder and non-negligent manslaughter, armed robbery, and aggravated assault, including assault with a deadly weapon. According to NeighborhoodScout's analysis of FBI reported crime data, your chance of becoming a victim of one of these crimes in Seattle is one in 167.

In addition, NeighborhoodScout found that a lot of the crime that takes place in Seattle is property crime. Property crimes that are tracked for this analysis are burglary, larceny over fifty dollars, motor vehicle theft, and arson. In Seattle, your chance of becoming a victim of a property crime is one in 19, which is a rate of 54 per one thousand population.

Importantly, we found that Seattle has one of the highest rates of motor vehicle theft in the nation according to our analysis of FBI crime data. This is compared to communities of all sizes, from the smallest to the largest. In fact, your chance of getting your car stolen if you live in Seattle is one in 180.