Is Crime In Portland FINALLY Going Down?
Every month the Portland Police Bureau releases a monthly update about crime within the city. These crime statistics are broken down in to a variety of different categories based on each offenese and where it occurred.
The graphic below details every crime which has happened this year. As you can see, almost all of the crimes were assault offences against people, or theft against property or motor vehicles. This has raised a few eyebrows given the amount of fires in Portland, but these are a lot harder to solve since the offender can simply light a fire and run away, leaving no real evidence for police to find.
In any case, a handy filter on the website allows you to filter crime over almost any recent period you like.
It’s no secret that crime in Portland had been increasing ever since 2019. In fairness, there was a brief period where crime went down slightly during the pandemic, but this is most likely due to people staying inside their homes and general lack of criminal opportunity.
However, some good news is that by comparing Q1 data across these years, we are finally seeing that crime is beginning to drop within the city of Portland.
| Year | Total Crimes | Person Crimes | Property Crimes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 2856 | 410 | 2307 |
| 2020 | 3024 | 471 | 2425 |
| 2021 | 2884 | 473 | 2341 |
| 2022 | 3775 | 501 | 3184 |
| 2023 | 3432 | 467 | 2882 |
The table clearly displays that both personal and property crimes have dropped since 2022. Granted, they are still much higher than 2019, 2020 and 2021, but at the very least – they have begun to decline.
Of course there are cynics, and it could be possible that there are other problems with this data.
One example could be that there was a nationwide decrease in crime, which also affected Portland. Due to lack of official nationwide data, it is difficult to compare PDX with any other city though.
Another more sinister way, would be that law enforcement has figured out how to juke the statistics. Anyone involved with criminal activity will know that crime never stops and that it is simply a cat and mouse game. Sometimes the police get on top and are able to produce solid numbers, especially be downgrading crimes in to slightly less serious offences.
What do you think about these official statistics and do you think crime is dropping?