The process of identifying and minimizing one’s risk of being a crime victim in a new locale should begin before one relocates to their new home. It’s important to get an overall view of a new city and learn about its various neighborhoods before choosing the one that you should select to live in. Time spent during this process will pay off in a greater feeling of safety and help avoid the inevitable regrets of a hasty and ill-advised choice.  

The first source for information is ideally a friend or relative who lives in or has extensive experience living in the city you intend to relocate to. While this is the ideal first step in gathering facts, sometimes that option is not available, and your own search from other resources needs to be done.  

Most modern urban police departments have civilian crime prevention specialists who work with neighborhoods to increase citizen awareness of safety risks and help develop strategies to avoid victimization. Contacting the community relations unit of the local police can produce a wealth of information on a neighborhood under consideration, and most will gladly provide statistical data for a particular area of interest that can be used in assessing risk factors.  

The Internet also provides a rich source of information about city neighborhoods. Crime statistics and abstracts may be available from official city databases, and Google searches for specific neighborhoods can yield news stories and articles that can give a feel for the general tenor and reputation of a given area.  

After selecting a few neighborhoods for the short list of consideration, it’s time to do some boots-on-the-ground personal research.  

Drive or bus around the neighborhoods you are interested in, both during day and nighttime. Take note of the general state of repair of residential properties in the area - badly maintained properties are generally an indication of indifferent landlords who pay little attention to their buildings or the people they rent them to. Are the streets trash free, well lit, and regularly traveled by families with children? Generally a good sign of the residents’ perception of safety and pride in their neighborhood.  

Note the resident activity in the neighborhood. Are large numbers of people loitering around buildings, street corners, and vacant areas or businesses? Most adults tend to work during daylight hours. If you’re seeing lots of idle people around a building or neighborhood, chances are that it’s experiencing a concentration of poverty which may bring with it a high risk of crime victimization from residents or their visitors.  

Look at the type of businesses which occupy commercial areas in the neighborhood. An abundance of pawn shops, check cashing services, busy liquor stores, or sexually oriented entertainment venues is generally a red flag that the area is one which caters to the down and out and those seeking illicit thrills at all hours of the day and night.  

Once a neighborhood is selected, it’s time to zero in on a specific property to call home. Since most newcomers to an area tend to select rental property as their first residence, it’s important to sort out the options carefully before committing to a choice. Take the criterion you used for a general neighborhood survey and apply them to a specific property that interests you. Is the building and its grounds in good general repair? Is the rental agent friendly, professional, and forthcoming with information? Are the parking area and building entrances secure, neat, and well lit? Does the building’s location provide a safe and convenient route to public transportation and your work or school destinations? Are the security devices on doors and windows modern, functional, and in good working order? Are the building’s other residents reasonably friendly and willing to discuss their experiences as tenants of the property and renters from this particular landlord or management company? The answers you get to these questions should be helpful in determining your level of comfort with living in this particular property. Once again, observations of the property should be done both during day and nighttime hours, because activity levels and clientele are often very different at different times and a property’s character can transform itself radically based on the time of observation.  

Once you’ve selected your new home and moved in, the priorities in terms of safety and crime resistance are fairly basic: your personal safety and the safety and security of your residence and vehicle. Awareness of your surroundings and street activity, selection of safe and public routes for pedestrian travel, and research into the reputation and hazards of particular entertainment and shopping venues is important. Basic avoidance of property crime risks for home and vehicle generally center around avoiding the display of valuable or attractive property and observing good security and locking habits. Issues surrounding personal and property security deserve a treatment of their own, but those major areas of concern are a good basis for reducing your risk of becoming a crime statistic.