Clifton aggravated assault is the headline signal for January 2026 — the sharpest single-neighborhood move tracked this month, and the lead anomaly with no prior run behind it. There is no recurring combo dominating the top of the rankings this briefing; Clifton is a fresh signal. The category also appears in Corryville, making aggravated assault the most-repeated category across the top five.
Citywide volume is down 3.2% against the prior 12 months — 13,748 incidents versus 14,207 in the year before. The overall direction is modest, but the signal mix is not quiet: 27 spikes against just 4 drops, spread across 50 neighborhoods, with 19 sustained-shift signals and 8 zero-event signals filling out the 59 total. Riverside_Sedamsville other-larceny and Evanston theft-from-vehicle round out the top movers, both registering above-baseline spikes.
This is a first-time lead for the Clifton aggravated assault pattern, so there is no multi-month run to extrapolate from. The broader picture — 27 spikes in a month where citywide volume is still slightly below the prior year — is worth tracking in February. If the spike-heavy mix persists against a declining baseline, that divergence between neighborhood-level activity and citywide totals becomes the structural story.
Sustained drops worth naming
No sustained-shift signals this month — every category sits within its trailing-year range.
How last month's forecasts performed
Forecasts for January were issued from data through December 2025. 8 of 8 citywide bucket forecasts (100%) landed inside their 95% prediction intervals.
| Category | Predicted | Actual | Error | In CI |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aggravated Assault | 52[37–67] | 64 | 18.5% | INSIDE |
| Burglary | 132[98–165] | 134 | 1.8% | INSIDE |
| Homicide | 2[0–6] | 4 | 47.2% | INSIDE |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 232[103–383] | 124 | 87.1% | INSIDE |
| Other Larceny | 383[334–432] | 361 | 6.1% | INSIDE |
| Robbery | 49[29–67] | 36 | 35.7% | INSIDE |
| Sexual Assault | 17[9–24] | 11 | 50.4% | INSIDE |
| Theft from Vehicle | 238[166–309] | 202 | 17.7% | INSIDE |
Per-bucket coverage, MAPE, and bias across the full 12-month horizon live on the methodology page.
Public Analyst.ai, “January 2026 — Cincinnati,” archived snapshot.Permanent URL: /cincinnati/2026/january