Chicago Crime Rate Trends
The city, by the numbers we publish each month: 77 neighborhoods, 9 incident categories, twelve months of trailing comparison. Browse the rankings, scan the multi-year trends, or open a neighborhood-level breakdown.
Hegewisch vandalism is the lead signal for March 2026 — a sharp move above its multi-year baseline, the most prominent fresh signal in a month that otherwise skews toward sustained declines. There is no recurring lead from prior months to displace; this is a clean new story at the top of the rankings.
Citywide volume is down 8.6% against the prior 12 months — 130,075 incidents against 142,267 the year before. The signal mix is weighted heavily toward structural improvement: 69 sustained-shift signals and 29 below-trend moves against 14 fresh spikes across 77 neighborhoods. Armour Square sexual assault and Gage Park other-larceny both registered spikes in the top five, pulling in two separate categories alongside the Hegewisch vandalism lead.
With 114 total signals and a clear downward trend in volume, March reads as a continuation of the multi-month decline rather than a reversal. The fresh spikes in Hegewisch and Armour Square are worth tracking in April — one month of movement in a low-base neighborhood is not yet a pattern, but both categories appeared in more than one neighborhood this period.
Chicago Crime Frequently Asked Questions
Trailing 12 months vs the prior 12 months, computed from the same NIBRS-aligned categories used everywhere else on the page. Updated each March 2026 briefing.
Is crime in Chicago down?
Yes — citywide incident volume is 8.6% lower than the prior 12 months.
Across the trailing 12-month window we tracked 130,075 incidents in NIBRS-aligned categories, compared to 142,267 in the year before — down 12,192 incidents.
Is violent crime in Chicago down?
Yes — homicide, robbery, aggravated assault, and sexual assault are down 17.9% combined in the trailing 12 months.
That's 21,319 violent incidents in the past year against 25,976 in the prior year. See the by-category section below for the per-bucket breakdown.
Is property crime in Chicago down?
Yes — burglary, theft from vehicle, larceny, motor vehicle theft, and arson are down 7.4% combined in the trailing 12 months.
That's 82,411 property incidents in the past year against 89,018 in the prior year.
Which neighborhood in Chicago saw the biggest crime drop?
Forest Glen — 25.0% fewer incidents than the prior 12 months.
Forest Glen logged 219 incidents in the trailing 12 months against 292 the year before.
Which neighborhood in Chicago saw the biggest crime increase?
Montclare — 32.7% more incidents than the prior 12 months.
Montclare logged 406 incidents in the trailing 12 months against 306 the year before.
The denominators behind the numbers
Lake-fronting flat city laid out on a strict grid; the 77 community areas were defined by the University of Chicago in the 1920s and remain the city's standard analytical unit. Major arterials (Lake Shore Dr, Western, Western Ave, the I-90/94 expressway) define most community-area boundaries.
ACS 2023 5-year estimates, county-level (Cook County). Cook County is broader than Chicago city — county-level medians (rent, home value, household income, age) lean slightly different from a Chicago-city-only median. Per-tract counts (population, households, housing units) sum only the ~790 tracts that fall inside the city.
City-level only. We deliberately do not juxtapose these with neighborhood-level crime data — see the methodology for why.
Dense, transit-rich core (Loop, Near North, Lakeview) gives way to mid-density bungalow belts and lower-density South and West Side neighborhoods. The CTA L network shapes most North Side and West Side travel patterns; far South Side is more car-dependent.
CPD started submitting to NIBRS in 2021 but the public Crimes dataset has stayed on the IUCR coding scheme for stability. Our category mapper translates IUCR primary types and descriptions into the same UCR Part 1 buckets used elsewhere on the site, so cross-city comparisons stay apples-to-apples. The dataset documents a 7-day reporting buffer.
Every neighborhood, color-coded
Largest moves this month
| # | Neighborhood | Category | MoM | YoY 12mo | |z| | 90-day trend | Signal |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Hegewisch | Vandalism | -65% | +72% | 6.75 | SPIKE | |
| 02 | Armour Square | Sexual Assault | 0% | +300% | 6.63 | SPIKE | |
| 03 | Gage Park | Other Larceny | +19% | +68% | 5.13 | SPIKE | |
| 04 | Lower West Side | Sexual Assault | -50% | +122% | 4.43 | SPIKE | |
| 05 | Montclare | Other Larceny | +533% | +67% | 3.36 | SPIKE | |
| 06 | Douglas | Sexual Assault | +400% | +37% | 3.08 | SPIKE | |
| 07 | Woodlawn | Other Larceny | +39% | +12% | 3.07 | SPIKE | |
| 08 | West Pullman | Sexual Assault | -50% | +65% | 2.97 | SPIKE | |
| 09 | Montclare | Aggravated Assault | +67% | +58% | 2.89 | SPIKE | |
| 10 | Bridgeport | Other Larceny | -11% | +19% | 2.83 | SPIKE | |
| 11 | Hyde Park | Vandalism | -65% | +59% | 2.73 | SPIKE | |
| 12 | Archer Heights | Other Larceny | -9% | -8% | 2.62 | SPIKE |
The long arc — eight years of monthly counts
Four neighborhoods worth your time
Hegewisch
The past 12 months saw 158 incidents — about 93% above the 82 average from prior years.
Read briefing →SPIKE · SEXUAL ASSAULTArmour Square
The past 12 months saw 24 incidents — about 305% above the 6 average from prior years.
Read briefing →SPIKE · OTHER LARCENYGage Park
The past 12 months saw 714 incidents — about 100% above the 357 average from prior years.
Read briefing →SPIKE · SEXUAL ASSAULTLower West Side
The past 12 months saw 51 incidents — about 81% above the 28 average from prior years.
Read briefing →Hour-of-day, day-of-week, and seasonality
Distribution of bucketed incidents citywide across the full analysis window. Useful for routine context — shopping-strip thefts vs. late-night assaults read very differently when you can see when each typically happens.
All 77 Chicago neighborhoods
Crime rate trends and March 2026 briefings for every tracked neighborhood. Alphabetical.
- Albany Park crime rate
- Archer Heights crime rate
- Armour Square crime rate
- Ashburn crime rate
- Auburn Gresham crime rate
- Austin crime rate
- Avalon Park crime rate
- Avondale crime rate
- Belmont Cragin crime rate
- Beverly crime rate
- Bridgeport crime rate
- Brighton Park crime rate
- Burnside crime rate
- Calumet Heights crime rate
- Chatham crime rate
- Chicago Lawn crime rate
- Clearing crime rate
- Douglas crime rate
- Dunning crime rate
- East Garfield Park crime rate
- East Side crime rate
- Edgewater crime rate
- Edison Park crime rate
- Englewood crime rate
- Forest Glen crime rate
- Fuller Park crime rate
- Gage Park crime rate
- Garfield Ridge crime rate
- Grand Boulevard crime rate
- Greater Grand Crossing crime rate
- Hegewisch crime rate
- Hermosa crime rate
- Humboldt Park crime rate
- Hyde Park crime rate
- Irving Park crime rate
- Jefferson Park crime rate
- Kenwood crime rate
- Lake View crime rate
- Lincoln Park crime rate
- Lincoln Square crime rate
- Logan Square crime rate
- Loop crime rate
- Lower West Side crime rate
- McKinley Park crime rate
- Montclare crime rate
- Morgan Park crime rate
- Mount Greenwood crime rate
- Near North Side crime rate
- Near South Side crime rate
- Near West Side crime rate
- New City crime rate
- North Center crime rate
- North Lawndale crime rate
- North Park crime rate
- Norwood Park crime rate
- Oakland crime rate
- Ohare crime rate
- Portage Park crime rate
- Pullman crime rate
- Riverdale crime rate
- Rogers Park crime rate
- Roseland crime rate
- South Chicago crime rate
- South Deering crime rate
- South Lawndale crime rate
- South Shore crime rate
- Uptown crime rate
- Washington Heights crime rate
- Washington Park crime rate
- West Elsdon crime rate
- West Englewood crime rate
- West Garfield Park crime rate
- West Lawn crime rate
- West Pullman crime rate
- West Ridge crime rate
- West Town crime rate
- Woodlawn crime rate
Every signal, every forecast, documented
Open about how we define spikes, what we exclude as noise, where the data comes from, and how often the model is wrong.