El paso crime rates by zip code (2008)

[Vizia]

I just sign a lease for a house in the 79912 zip. Everyone I've talk to said: "move to the west it's safe"
well here are the stats:Statistics for ZIP-Code 79912:

CRIME CATEGORY February 2009 YTD 2009* February 2008 YTD 2008*
Assault (Agg.) 12 33 12 22
Assault (Simple) 36 87 66 117
Auto Theft & UUMV 26 56 33 60
Burglary 13 29 19 33
Larceny (Theft) 109 253 101 205
Murder 0 0 0 0
Rape 0 2 0 0
Robbery 1 3 3 4
* Year to date totals are based on a calendar year and include the current month shown.
All totals are calculated in monthly increments.


www.elpasotexas.gov - El Paso Crime Statistics By Regional Command

[malamute]

Originally Posted by Vizia

I just sign a lease for a house in the 79912 zip. Everyone I've talk to said: "move to the west it's safe"
well here are the stats:Statistics for ZIP-Code 79912:

CRIME CATEGORY February 2009 YTD 2009* February 2008 YTD 2008*
Assault (Agg.) 12 33 12 22
Assault (Simple) 36 87 66 117
Auto Theft & UUMV 26 56 33 60
Burglary 13 29 19 33
Larceny (Theft) 109 253 101 205
Murder 0 0 0 0
Rape 0 2 0 0
Robbery 1 3 3 4
* Year to date totals are based on a calendar year and include the current month shown.
All totals are calculated in monthly increments.


www.elpasotexas.gov - El Paso Crime Statistics By Regional Command

Do you think those are good or bad stats?

79912 is safe enough. 0 murders is good but we all know property crime is pretty high in El Paso.

[Vizia]

Originally Posted by malamute

Do you think those are good or bad stats?

79912 is safe enough. 0 murders is good but we all know property crime is pretty high in El Paso.

well, the auto theft is high (I think) and I love my car. But I drove around east and central for 2 days and I do must say I like the west waaaay better.

Now, the property crime is high, like burglary? Is it organized or just random kids breaking in?

[malamute]

Originally Posted by Vizia

well, the auto theft is high (I think) and I love my car. But I drove around east and central for 2 days and I do must say I like the west waaaay better.

Now, the property crime is high, like burglary? Is it organized or just random kids breaking in?

I would say it's organized. Leave something unlocked and you're going to lose your things and if all your neighbors have iron bars all over everything, that's a good sign you should have them too. Vandalism is big here too.

As far as your car, it depends a lot on what kind of car you drive, mostly it's bigger trucks that are the targets. Carjackings are on the rise, they used to be very rare here.

[mistabinks]

Property crime is not a big problem in El Paso. It may seem that way compared to low stats of other type of crimes. Don't guess by a whole part of town. There are awesome neighborhoods in the NE and bad ones on the west side. You can't go by generalizing the whole part of town. It looks like you are doing your homework so that is good. Also, iron bars don't always tell the whole story. There was a national trend a decade or so ago and many many houses got them. Not so much because of necessity but because it was the thing to do. El Paso is not a crime free utopia but I would not be paranoid about property crime or carjackings. They do happen but that does not mean there is an epidemic here.

[MooleniumCrunch]

Agreed, iron bars tend to be more of a time-specific trend rather than a sign of criminal activity in the area. I live in a new development that's right next to an older neighborhood (built in the 70s) and a lot of houses on the older part have iron bars, whether our newer houses don't have any. It's a really safe neighborhood, we've been here for 5 years and it's been quiet and our things have never disappeared from our front yard (**knock on wood**, just in case).

I've seen neighborhoods in the west that look a bit sketchy, just like I've seen some older neighborhoods in the lower valley which I love (I like older houses built in huge lots, lots of garden space). You should really look around and find the neighborhood you like in the area you like.

[Gary Siete]

Agreed, bars are largely an indication of year built - before and after affordable electronic surveillance systems. I feel safer with bars but relatives have window alarm systems.

[Gary Siete]

The El Paso Miracle: How can a comparatively poor, high-immigration town that sits across the border from super-violent Ciudad Juarez be one of the safest big cities in America? - Reason Magazine

El Paso is among the safest big cities in America. For the better part of the last decade, only Honolulu has had a lower violent crime rate (El Paso slipped to third last year, behind New York). Men's Health magazine recently ranked El Paso the second "happiest" city in America, right after Laredo, Texas—another border town, where the Hispanic population is approaching 95 percent.

So how has this city of poor immigrants become such an anomaly? Actually, it may not be an anomaly at all. Many criminologists say El Paso isn't safe despite its high proportion of immigrants, it's safe because of them.

"If you want to find a safe city, first determine the size of the immigrant population," says Jack Levin, a criminologist at Northeastern University in Massachusetts. "If the immigrant community represents a large proportion of the population, you're likely in one of the country's safer cities. San Diego, Laredo, El Paso—these cities are teeming with immigrants, and they're some of the safest places in the country."

If you regularly listen to talk radio, or get your crime news from anti-immigration pundits, all of this may come as a surprise. But it's not to many of those who study crime for a living....

[MooleniumCrunch]

"City of poor immigrants"

Ha, we may have a lot of immigrants, although just for their information, not every Hispanic is an immigrant, but have they been to New Orleans? Poor doesn't even begin to cover it.

I am sorry. I just hate it when they make EP sound like a glorified trailer park town.

[luplor]

Several Federal law enforcement agencies, Sheriff Dept, Constables, Police Dept. The city should be safe.

One of the perception problems is because of the constant reference that Juarez and EP are one and the same plus the mayor making a habit of stating that EP has two mayors. The Sister city program is misused and mischaracterized in EP.