Queens CD14 — Far Rockaway / Broad Channel Crime Rate Trends — New York
Queens's southernmost community district covers the Rockaway peninsula and Broad Channel — Far Rockaway, Edgemere, Arverne, Rockaway Beach, Rockaway Park, Belle Harbor, Neponsit, and Breezy Point. Anchored by the Rockaway boardwalk, Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, the Cross Bay Boulevard and Marine Parkway bridges, and the A train shuttle along the peninsula.
Three categories moved in Queens CD14 this August briefing, one single-month below-trend signal and two sustained multi-year structural shifts. The overall shape is broadly downward: every signal this month points in the same direction, and the pattern extends well beyond a single quiet month.
Vandalism is the sharpest single-month signal, with the trailing 12-month total at 442 against 568 the year before, down 22.2%. Burglary and theft from vehicle are both running as sustained shifts, not just short-term dips: burglary is at 93 incidents over the current 12 months against 139 in the prior year, down 33.1%, and theft from vehicle is at 120 against 173, down 30.6%. The remaining tracked categories were within normal range for the month.
Notable signals 1
Vandalism
The past 12 months saw 442 incidents — about 43% below the 776 average from prior years.
All categories, last 24 months
Each panel: recent monthly count vs. trailing 12-month context. MoM is the most recent month vs. the one before; 12mo YoY compares the trailing year to the year before that.
What's been quietly true for a year
Spikes get attention. Sustained shifts shape policy. These are multi-quarter patterns where the past 12-month total differs meaningfully from the year before — they often precede the baseline resetting.
- Theft from Vehicle has reset to a lower baseline.
The trailing 12-month count is 120, down 31% from 173 the year before. If the trend holds another quarter, it will pull the multi-year baseline down.
- Burglary has reset to a lower baseline.
The trailing 12-month count is 93, down 33% from 139 the year before. If the trend holds another quarter, it will pull the multi-year baseline down.
What next month likely looks like
Forecasts trained through August 2026, with a likely range we're 95% confident the actual count will fall inside. Categories with too little recent volume — or violent categories at the neighborhood level — show no forecast and are surfaced through signals above instead. See the methodology page for the gating rules.
Aggravated Assault
Too low-volume per neighborhood for a reliable point forecast — see the rare-event and streak-break signals above instead.
Arson
Below the volume threshold for a reliable forecast — too few incidents in recent months to project from.
Burglary
Homicide
Too low-volume per neighborhood for a reliable point forecast — see the rare-event and streak-break signals above instead.
Motor Vehicle Theft
Other Larceny
Robbery
Too low-volume per neighborhood for a reliable point forecast — see the rare-event and streak-break signals above instead.
Sexual Assault
Too low-volume per neighborhood for a reliable point forecast — see the rare-event and streak-break signals above instead.
Theft from Vehicle
Vandalism
How Queens CD14 — Far Rockaway / Broad Channel compares
Peer neighborhoods picked by closest 12-month vandalism volume — a pragmatic v1 of peer matching. Demographic / housing-stock peer matching isn't built yet (we deliberately don't ingest income or race data alongside crime). Volume similarity has the right intuition: “neighborhoods experiencing comparable vandalism levels.”
Brooklyn CD4 — Bushwick
424 incidents over the past 12 months — 18 below Queens CD14 — Far Rockaway / Broad Channel's 442.
Open page →Queens CD7 — Flushing / Whitestone
469 incidents over the past 12 months — 27 above Queens CD14 — Far Rockaway / Broad Channel's 442.
Open page →Brooklyn CD13 — Coney Island / Brighton Beach
403 incidents over the past 12 months — 39 below Queens CD14 — Far Rockaway / Broad Channel's 442.
Open page →Recurring local terms (last 12 months)
Top terms in incident descriptions for Queens CD14 — Far Rockaway / Broad Channel, excluding generic crime taxonomy. Useful as texture — what kinds of specifics show up here that don't show up elsewhere.
Hour-of-day, day-of-week, and seasonality
Distribution of bucketed incidents in this neighborhood 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.
How we built this page
Data → Anomalies → Forecast → Page
Incident data is pulled from the NYPD Complaint dataset on NYC Open Data, mapped to 10 UCR-aligned categories, and aggregated to community district × category × month.Anomalies are surfaced using strict thresholds (~p < 0.01). Forecasts are Prophet with low-count gating; violent categories at the neighborhood level skip the forecast and show rare-event / streak signals instead.
Spike rule: 12-mo total > baseline mean + 2.5σ AND ≥ 20 incidents AND 6-mo confirms. Drop rule: 12-mo total < baseline mean − 2.5σ AND baseline mean ≥ 20. Rare event: any incident in the last 90 days, no prior comparable in ≥ 5 years.