Crime by type
Baltimore Crime by Type
The offense categories behind Baltimore's numbers, from everyday property crime to the violence that drives the city's national reputation.
Overview
What drives crime in Baltimore
Baltimore stands out for the weight of its violent crime relative to most U.S. cities, even though property offenses still make up the larger raw count. The defining feature of the data is concentration: serious violence loads heavily onto a handful of corridors rather than spreading evenly across the city.
By category
Rates and odds by crime type
Estimated annual rate per 100,000 residents and your everyday odds, with risk level relative to the U.S. average.
| Offense | Per 100k/yr | Annual odds | vs. U.S. | Risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Theft / Larceny | 2,766 | 1 in 36 | +97% | Moderate |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 624 | 1 in 160 | +96% | Moderate |
| Aggravated Assault | 502 | 1 in 199 | +87% | Moderate |
| Burglary | 468 | 1 in 214 | +73% | Moderate |
| Robbery | 112 | 1 in 896 | +51% | Moderate |
| Rape | 65 | 1 in 1,535 | +94% | Moderate |
| Homicide | 9 | 1 in 10,997 | +82% | Moderate |
Drill down
What's actually reported in Baltimore
The most common specific offenses behind each category, from reported incident descriptions.
Theft 17,342 reports
Assault 12,804 reports
Vandalism 6,390 reports
Retail Theft 3,728 reports
Burglary 2,786 reports
Shooting 1,729 reports
Detail
Crime types in Baltimore, explained
Motor Vehicle Theft
Car theft and theft from vehicles are common across the city, rising near commercial strips and denser rowhouse blocks where street parking is the norm.
Theft / Larceny
Theft is the highest-volume category overall, spanning retail theft downtown, items taken from vehicles, and property snatched from porches and yards.
Burglary
Break-ins affect both homes and businesses and tend to climb in disinvested corridors, though the vacant-property problem in parts of the city complicates simple comparisons.
Aggravated Assault
Aggravated assault is a major driver of Baltimore's violent total and concentrates sharply in specific west- and east-side neighborhoods rather than the waterfront or northern areas.
Robbery
Robberies follow commercial corridors, transit points, and nightlife areas, and remain more frequent here than in many comparably sized cities.
Homicide
Homicide is Baltimore's signature public-safety challenge, with a rate among the highest in the nation; it is intensely localized, so a small number of neighborhoods carry a large share of the citywide count.