How the Safety Score Works

The safety score answers one question: how much public-space crime activity does this spot see, compared to the rest of Saint Paul? It is a rank from 0 (the most activity in the city) to 100 (the least), not a prediction or a guarantee.

Every incident within your chosen radius over the past 90 days is counted, weighted by how strongly that type of crime signals danger in public space (see the table below).
The weighted count is divided by the area of your radius, giving a density — so a quarter-mile circle and a one-mile circle are compared fairly.
That density is ranked against a same-size circle centered on every quarter-mile point of Saint Paul — like-for-like, so a quiet street and a shopping district are each compared fairly. A score of 82 means this spot has less weighted crime activity than 82% of the city.

Why incidents are weighted

Raw incident counts treat a stolen bike the same as a shooting. Worse, they treat crimes that say little about street safety — domestic incidents, which happen between people who know each other, or narcotics cases, which mostly reflect where police patrol — the same as crimes that define a dangerous block, like robbery or shots fired. The weights below reflect how much an incident says about ambient public-space risk, not how serious the crime is for its victim.

Homicide	10	Maximum weight
Discharge	8	Shots fired — public-space danger by definition
Robbery	8	Street crime by definition
Agg assault	6	Violent, frequently public
Arson	5	Serious property destruction
Burglary	4	Property invasion
Auto theft	3	Property crime
Simple assault	3	Lower-level violence
Rape	3	Severe harm, but predominantly committed by someone known to the victim — a weak signal of public-space danger. Weighting reflects signal, not severity of the crime.
Theft	2	Largely petty and retail theft
Agg assault dom	2	Domestic — says little about street safety
Criminal damage	1	Property damage
Vandalism	1	Property damage
Graffiti	1	Property damage
Narcotics	1	Largely reflects where police look, not danger to residents
Simple assault dom	1	Domestic — says little about street safety

Limitations

Only crimes reported to police and published by the City of Saint Paul are counted; locations are approximate (the city rounds addresses to the block).
The score is not adjusted for population or foot traffic — busy commercial areas naturally see more incidents per square mile than residential blocks, without being proportionally more dangerous per visit.
The score compares places within Saint Paul only; it says nothing about how the city compares to anywhere else.

See the data live on the crime map or per neighborhood on the neighborhood pages.