Finding out about crime (Minneapolis, St. Paul: crime rates, houses, neighborhood)

[IrishGalMinnesota]

Hello,

My husband and I are currently looking to buy in Minnesota. I have lived here most of my life, and he has lived here for over a decade. However, we really don't know much about which areas of the suburbs and even within Minneapolis/St. Paul are "safer" as far as crime; of course we know the stereotypes like Brooklyn Park is not a nice place to live, Edina is a nice place to live, blahblahblah - and I think these are deceptive. There are areas of Brooklyn Park that are quite nice, and areas of Edina that I would not choose to live.

At any rate, my main question is if anyone knows of web sites you can go to, to find out about crime rates and specific information - for example, I would be interested in knowing how often the police had been called to a neighborhood I am interested in, and why - burgleries? Domestic disputes? Noise problems? Etc. I wonder if it's possible to actually find out whether the police have been called on specific houses (for example, the person who may be your neighbor if you make an offer on a house...!). I know these are things that are not required to be disclosed by the person selling the home or the realtor, so it's something we want to find out for ourselves before committing to anything.

Thanks if you can help!

[Delaneyland]

Other than FBI statistics, the fastest and easiest way to get "real" information is by simply contacting the police department in the area which you want to live and ask to be put in touch with an officer that works in the neighborhood you're looking at. Believe it or not, most cops are interested in the community in which they work and are more than willing to give you information asked for....and they likely will give you the real deal instead of the glorified statistics. Problem with looking at statistical data is it is somewhat slanted and can be unrealistic. The local cop knows the neighborhood, the trouble that exists that doesn't get documented, and the flavor of the folks that live in a particular community.

[The Icy River Vagabond]

Your only way of actually comparing the data is by looking at statistics, you can ask the peoiple that live in the area, and they might say ohhh, it's great here. Or ohhh, we have a huge crime problem, but the problem with that is that the people that are telling you that probably have nothing to compare with, they may have been in the area there entire life. For meaningful comparisons, statistics are the ONLY way.

[TTeVogt]

IrishgalMinnesota.........
I would suggest looking up specific cities on www.city-data.com. You can look up a city, and it will give you a breakdown on the number of crimes. The problem i see with looking up stats for things like number of calls to a neighborhood is that unless there is a charge filed against an individual, you may have a hard time finding out about it.

Let me know if i can be of any more help....