Violent vs. Property Crime on Borderstan’s “Hot” Blocks

Last week Borderstan welcomed a new contributor, Cody Telep. A resident of the U Street area, he is writing about crime and the police. Telep is finishing a PhD in criminology at George Mason University.

From Cody Telep. Follow him on Twitter @codywt, email him at [email protected]

Not all high crime locations are created equal. Last week, I examined the highest crime street blocks in Borderstan: Crime in Borderstan: Do You Live on a “Hot” Street Block? However, total crime counts don’t necessarily tell the whole story. Most people fear violent crime far more than property crime (with good reason). So, I went back and looked at the 12 blocks in terms of violent and property crimes.

In the table below, I revisit the 12 highest crime street blocks, this time dividing the total number of incidents between violent crime and property crime.

Overall, the table shows a good deal of variation from block to block in the percentage of crime that is violent versus property. For violent crime, the percentage ranges from 4 percent for the 1700 block of P Street NW (just 1 robbery out of 24 total incidents) to the 40.5 percent on the 1300 block of U Street mentioned above. Despite the wide range, on all of these blocks, property crime is more common than violent crime.

Rank	Street Block (B/O = block of)	Violent Incidents	Percentage of Total		Property Incidents	Percentage of Total
1.	1300 B/O U Street NW	17	40.5%		25	59.5%
2.	1400 B/O P Street NW	3	7.9%		35	92.1%
3.	1600 B/O Connecticut Avenue NW	3	9.7%		28	90.3%
T4.	1500 B/O Connecticut Avenue NW	2	8.0%		23	92.0%
T4.	1700 B/O P Street NW	1	4.0%		24	96.0%
6.	1200 B/O U Street NW	7	29.2%		17	70.8%
7.	1700 B/O T Street NW	2	8.7%		21	91.3%
T8.	1300 B/O 14th Street NW	6	28.6%		15	71.4%
T8.	1900 B/O 14th Street NW	5	23.8%		16	76.2%
T10.	1000 B/O U Street NW	4	20.0%		16	80.0%
T10.	1800 B/O 14th Street NW	4	20.0%		16	80.0%
T10.	1900 B/O 9th Street NW	7	35.0%		13	65.0%
TOTAL		61	19.7%	249		80.3%

Violent crime here refers to robberies, assaults with a deadly weapon, and sexual abuse cases (there was just 1 sexual abuse incident on these 12 blocks). Property crime is a combination of stolen automobiles, thefts, and thefts from automobiles. There were no arsons or homicides on these 12 street blocks in the first 10 months of 2011.

Some interesting findings emerge from the table. The highest crime street segment, the 1300 block of U Street NW, also had the highest proportion of violent crime incidents. Just over 40 percent of the incidents on this block can be classified as violent crimes, with eight assaults with a deadly weapon and nine robberies.

This stands in contrast to the block with the second highest number of total incidents, the 1400 block of P Street NW, which had just three violent incidents. Thefts were driving crime incidents on this block; 31 of the 38 total incidents were classified as thefts.

Overall, the table shows a good deal of variation from block to block in the percentage of crime that is violent versus property. For violent crime, the percentage ranges from 4 percent for the 1700 block of P Street NW (just 1 robbery out of 24 total incidents) to the 40.5 percent on the 1300 block of U Street mentioned above. Despite the wide range, on all of these blocks, property crime is more common than violent crime.

As noted last week, these blocks overall produced about 14 percent of crime incidents in Borderstan. For certain crime categories, however, these blocks are responsible for a greater proportion of incidents. For example, 26 percent of all assaults with a deadly weapon and 25 percent of all thefts in Borderstan occurred on these blocks. Interestingly, auto-related crimes were less common. In total these 12 blocks had just six stolen cars (about five percent of the Borderstan total) and 44 thefts from automobiles (again, about five percent of the Borderstan total).

Just as with last week’s results, it is important to not overstate these findings. While the 1300 block of U Street has had the highest number of violent crime incidents, there were still only 17 such incidents in the first 10 months of 2011. Additionally, these results come from police incident data, which are always subject to later changes and reclassifications.