You were more likely to get beat up in north Capitol Hill while businesses on Broadway and in I-5 Shores had to make sure anything of value was tied down and bikes were securely locked. Central Capitol Hill saw an upswing in burglaries and thefts, while burglaries — especially, business burglaries — soared in Pike/Pine. On the positive side of things, central Capitol Hill from Cal Anderson uphill saw a statistically significant decrease in robberies. And, not to diminish it, the across the board decrease in vehicle theft should definitely be noted. You were also way less likely to get beat up in Pike/Pine.
Despite what seems like a flurry of incidents to start 2010, robberies on Capitol Hill are actually in a downward trend, according to a CHS analysis of the Seattle Police Department’s annual crime statistics. But the trends do corroborate the conventional wisdom that property crimes like burglaries and thefts are on an upswing. Details on this and the revealing breakout of the 2009 crime trends for the four East Precinct police beats that cover Capitol Hill, below.
Overall, Capitol Hill crime totals came in at levels nearly identical to the whole of Seattle — up 8.1% vs. the citywide total of 7.4%. While the Hill saw an overall decrease in violent crimes for the year, the upsurge in burglaries and thefts is impressive — both categories climbed nearly about 20% higher than in 2008. Meanwhile, the Hill’s vehicle theft drop mirrored the rest of the city, driven lower by an effort to target the most prolific auto thieves. You can see the grid for all the full-city categories lower in this post.
As for the drop in robberies, the monthly data since the beginning of 2008 paints a picture of an overall downward trend. With some new tools at our disposal, we’re now able to watch these trends much more closely. Here’s a look at the Hill’s January crime hotspots. Keep these longer term trends in mind the next time your read a report about a Capitol Hill street robbery.
Also worth checking out are the breakouts for the East Precinct beats that cover the Capitol Hill area:
- C1: North Capitol Hill
- C2: Central-East Capitol Hill
- E1: I-5 Shores and Broadway
- E2: Pike/Pine and parts of First Hill (see map below)
In this table, you can see the crime category breakouts and change vs. 2008 for each beat area. We’ve marked any percentage changes in grey that are not significant due to small sample size. As you can see, each part of the Hill had at least one problem category in 2009.
Overall, beat E1 had the roughest go of it with increases in every category except vehicle thefts. Below, you can see fever lines of the monthly totals for each beat compared to 2008 to get a sense of the seasonal trends and ‘momentum’ in each area of the Hill. Mostly, the beats ended up close to their 2008 trends across the entirety of the year. Only Broadway/I-5 Shores’ E1 shows that troubling end-of-year uptick.
Above are the citywide totals provided by SPD. The department also provided the grid below showing the 10-year trends for Seattle and added their take on 2009’s totals:
The table below presents a ten-year picture of Major Crimes in Seattle. In the last two rows, the ten-year average for each crime category is shown as well as the comparison of the 2009 figures to this average.
As the table demonstrates, the Major Crime totals for 2009 are below the ten-year averages in all crimes, except robbery.
Both of the citywide tables are attached to this post in PDF format for easier viewing.
