May, June, YTD Crime Stats for “New” Borderstan

Starting this month I am reporting crime stats differently for our area:

• I am only collecting and analyzing crime stats for the new Borderstan crime area, which is larger than the old Borderstan.
• I will no longer post separate crime stats for Police Service Areas (PSAs) 208 and 307, which are roughly the Dupont Circle and Logan Circle neighborhoods, respectively.
• The old Borderstan crime area covered a circular area that radiated  1,000 feet from 15th and Corcoran Streets NW–an area that roughly went from south of P Street north to just above S Street… and from Kingman Place on the east almost to 17th Street on the west.
• The new Borderstan crime area (see map above) covers a circular area that radiates 1,500 feet from 15th and Corcoran Streets NW–an area that runs  from 13th Street/Logan Circle west to New Hampshire Avenue/half way between 17th and 18th Streets… and from Rhode Island Avenue/O Street  in the south to T/Caroline Streets in the north.
• The new Borderstan is still divided between PSA 208 (west of 15th) and PSA 307 (east of 15th), with a tiny sliver of PSA 305.

Note: It is easy to get crime stats for any PSA, ward or police district in the city from the MPD crime database. Likewise, you can get crime stats for any particular address or landmark designation, for a 100- to 1,500-foot radius. Another excellent source is CrimeReports, which includes MPD information and has great maps.

Violent Crime Bad in May, Down in June

• Violent Crime. May was a bad month in Borderstan, but June was better. There were 16 violent crimes in May (14 were robberies), but this was down to 4 in June (all were robberies). The May 2009 number was far above the May 2008 number (see tables below).
  • How do May and June 2009 compare to previous years? There were 10 violent crimes in the May-June 2007 period; 25 violent crimes in the May-June 2008 period; and 20 violent crimes in the May-June 2009 period (16 of them in May).
• As for gun crimes, there were 5 gun crimes in May, but only 1 in June for a total of 6 in this two month period. This compares to 0 in May-June 2007 and 4 in May-June 2008.
• No assaults were recorded in June in Borderstan; there were 2 in May.

January through June Violent Crime

• As for year-to-date (January through June), violent crime in Borderstan is virtually unchanged over the past two years: 47 crimes in 2007, 49 crimes in 2008 and 48 crimes in 2009.
• However, gun crimes are up noticeably for the first six months of the year in Borderstan. For this period, there were 10 gun crimes in  2007, 6 in 2008 and 14 in 2009.
• With the number of gun crimes more than double from 2008, it is easy to see why Bordestanians may feel less safe–regardless of whether the overall violent crime numbers are static or whether there was a huge improvement in June from May. People remember gun crimes–and rightfully so.
  

Property Crime Rising

• For 2009, there were 59 property crimes in May in Borderstan and 58 in June–117 in this two-month period. This compares to 105 property crimes for May-June 2008 and 95 in the same two months of 2007. This numbers represent a 23% increase in property crime for this two-month period since 2007. (See following tables for full statistics.)
• For year-to-date (January through June), property crime in Borderstan has soared in 2009 after dropping from 2007 to 2008. In the past year, for the January through June period, property crime is up 24% in Borderstan.
• There were 10 burglaries in Borderstan in June after only 2 such crimes in May–a total of 12 in this two-month period. However, to put this in perspective, there were 20 burglaries in Borderstan in the May-June period of 2008 and 13 in 2007.
  • Year to date (January through June), the number of burglaries in Borderstan is about the same as last year–but much higher than two years ago. There were 23 burglaries in the first six months of 2007, compared to 35 in 2008 and 34 for the same period of 2009.
  • As with gun crimes, people remember burglaries because they often involve residences. These are crimes that feel personal whether we are directly affected or not. Again, the spike in burglaries in June has probably affected Borderstanians’ sense of security–regardless of the year-to-date numbers.
• Driving up the property crime rate in Borderstan is the rise in the number of thefts, thefts from autos and stolen autos.
  • For example, there were 66 thefts from autos for the May-June period of 2009. This compares to 44 such crimes for the same two-month period in 2008 and 41 in 2007. This translates into a 50% increase in the number of thefts from autos for this period in one year.
  • The number of thefts in Borderstan has also increased noticeably in the past two years: there were 86 thefts for the January through June period of 2007 and 99 so far this year; a 15% rise.

Tables for June, May and YTD

Three tables with detailed Borderstan crime statistics follow: for May, for June and for Year to Date (January through June).

Directly below are June crime stats for Borderstan.

Crime Type	Borderstan June 2007 Crime Stats	Borderstan June 2008 Crime Stats	Borderstan June 2009 Crime Stats
Homicide	0	0	0
Sex Abuse	0	0	0
Robbery Excluding Gun	6	15	3
Robbery With Gun	0	1	1
Assault with a Dangerous Weapon (ADW) Excluding Gun	0	2	0
Assault with a Dangerous Weapon (ADW) With Gun	0	1	0
Total Violent Crime Month of June	6	19	4
Burglary	9	8	10
Theft	11	16	12
Theft From Auto	15	18	32
Stolen Auto	5	7	4
Arson	0	0	0
Total Property Crime Month of June	40	49	58
TOTAL CRIME Month of June	46	68	62

Directly below are May crime stats for Borderstan.

Crime Type	Borderstan May 2007 Crime Stats	Borderstan May 2008 Crime Stats	Borderstan May 2009 Crime Stats
Homicide	0	0	0
Sex Abuse	1	0	0
Robbery Excluding Gun	0	3	9
Robbery With Gun	0	1	5
Assault with a Dangerous Weapon (ADW) Excluding Gun	3	1	2
Assault with a Dangerous Weapon (ADW) With Gun	0	1	0
Total Violent Crime Month of May	4	6	16
Burglary	4	12	2
Theft	17	17	18
Theft From Auto	26	26	34
Stolen Auto	8	1	5
Arson	0	0	0
Total Property Crime Month of May	55	56	59
TOTAL CRIME Month of May	59	62	75

Directly below are Borderstan crime stats for the first half of the year, January through June.

Crime Type	Borderstan Jan.-June 2007 Crime Stats	Borderstan Jan.-June 2008 Crime Stats	Borderstan Jan.-June 2009 Crime Stats
Homicide	0	0	0
Sex Abuse	5	0	1
Robbery Excluding Gun	20	35	27
Robbery With Gun	10	4	12
Assault with a Dangerous Weapon (ADW) Excluding Gun	12	8	6
Assault with a Dangerous Weapon (ADW) With Gun	0	2	2
Total Violent Crime January through June	47	49	48
Burglary	23	35	34
Theft	86	88	99
Theft From Auto	137	120	169
Stolen Auto	28	21	25
Arson	0	0	0
Total Property Crime January through June	274	264	327
TOTAL CRIME January through June	321	313	325

Related Links

• MPD Crime Search Database
• CrimeReports