Most Dangerous Neighborhoods in Washington (2024)
Washington's open crime data doesn't include a reliable neighborhood-level population figure, so these neighborhood clusters are ranked by reported incident volume, not a population-adjusted safety rate. A higher ranking here means more severity-weighted reported incidents relative to other Washington neighborhood clusters.
Volume, not a safety rate. MPD neighborhood cluster resident population is not reliably available for a per-100k rate, so no safety grade is published for any zone (see /crime-rate/methodology §6.6). The geographic unit is the MPD neighborhood cluster (a policing/analysis boundary, not a resident-population neighborhood). relativeIndex ranks each zone by its VIOLENCE-WEIGHTED reported-incident volume (violent incidents weighted 3x property) against the other Washington zones — it is NOT population-adjusted and must not be read as a safety rate. Offenses are grouped into three coarse buckets (violent / property / other) via a keyword classifier.
Ranked highest to lowest reported volume
Not the same neighborhood clusters shown on the safest neighborhoods in Washington list.
- 1Neighborhood Cluster 41Vol. 100/100
- 2Neighborhood Cluster 46Vol. 100/100
- 3Neighborhood Cluster 40Vol. 99/100
- 4Neighborhood Cluster 44Vol. 99/100
- 5Neighborhood Cluster 45Vol. 99/100
- 6Neighborhood Cluster 29Vol. 98/100
- 7Neighborhood Cluster 43Vol. 97/100
- 8Neighborhood Cluster 13Vol. 95/100
- 9Neighborhood Cluster 16Vol. 94/100
- 10Neighborhood Cluster 10Vol. 92/100
- 11Neighborhood Cluster 12Vol. 89/100
- 12Neighborhood Cluster 28Vol. 89/100
- 13Neighborhood Cluster 11Vol. 86/100
- 14Neighborhood Cluster 14Vol. 86/100
- 15Neighborhood Cluster 20Vol. 86/100
- 16Neighborhood Cluster 36Vol. 85/100
- 17Neighborhood Cluster 37Vol. 85/100
- 18Neighborhood Cluster 5Vol. 85/100
- 19Neighborhood Cluster 35Vol. 83/100
- 20Neighborhood Cluster 15Vol. 82/100
- 21Neighborhood Cluster 24Vol. 82/100
- 22Neighborhood Cluster 19Vol. 81/100
- 23Neighborhood Cluster 30Vol. 80/100
- 24Neighborhood Cluster 38Vol. 77/100
- 25Neighborhood Cluster 4Vol. 77/100
No area has zero risk
A high Crime Index score means lower reported crime relative to other US cities — it is not a guarantee of safety. Reported crime is not the same as actual crime. Research on the gap between crime that occurs and crime that gets reported to police — often called the "dark figure" of crime — estimates that roughly 40% of violent crime and about a third of property crime go unreported each year. Every index built on official statistics, including this one, necessarily undercounts real crime. That gap is exactly why homicide — the offense with the smallest dark figure — anchors the calculation instead of a more commonly reported but less reliable category like theft.
Scores on this page reflect FBI-reported data for 2024. See the full methodology →