Keep Factually independent
Whether you agree or disagree with our analysis, these conversations matter for democracy. We don't take money from political groups - even a $5 donation helps us keep it that way.
Fact check: What are the top 5 most crime-prone neighborhoods in Chicago in 2025?
Executive Summary
Chicago’s most crime-prone neighborhoods in 2025 are consistently identified across multiple reviews as Englewood, West Englewood, Austin, North Lawndale, and West/East Garfield Park, though exact ordering varies by source and metric. Published lists and datasets from February through September 2025 show agreement on a cluster of South and West Side neighborhoods concentrated in these names, while other analyses emphasize overall citywide declines in violent and property crime that complicate simple rankings [1] [2] [3].
1. Numbers Tell a Story — What the Major 2025 Lists Claim Loudly
Three independent 2025 lists converge on a recurring set of neighborhoods when naming Chicago’s most crime-prone places, repeatedly citing Englewood, West Englewood, Austin, North Lawndale, and Garfield Park among the worst-affected areas. A September 3, 2025 dataset gives explicit per‑1,000-resident crime rates placing West Englewood (89.2), Englewood (84.7), Austin (78.9), North Lawndale (76.3), and East Garfield Park (73.1) at the top of its ranking [1]. Earlier and contemporaneous compilations from February and April 2025 echo this cluster, though they sometimes swap positions or substitute adjacent neighborhoods like West Garfield Park, reflecting consensus on the geography of high crime even as the exact order changes [2] [4].
2. Different Methodologies Produce Different Top-Five Lists — Read the Fine Print
The apparent disagreements between sources stem from diverging choices of metrics and time windows: some lists emphasize per‑1,000 residents violent-crime rates, others aggregate violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, and some rank by recent year-over-year changes. For example, a July 24, 2025 piece focused on the city’s safest neighborhoods and highlighted an overall decline in violent crime (–25%) and property crime (–11%) year-over-year, which changes relative risk perceptions even if high-crime neighborhoods remain identifiable [3]. These methodological differences explain why one dataset names West Englewood as highest while another elevates West Garfield Park or Austin [1] [4].
3. Agreement on the High-Risk Geography — South and West Side Concentration
Across all sources, the South and West Sides are repeatedly flagged as the epicenters of elevated crime in 2025, with Englewood and its adjacent West Englewood neighbor consistently listed, alongside Austin and both East and West Garfield Park. Multiple reports explicitly trace higher violent-crime rates to these neighborhoods and describe underlying patterns such as economic disinvestment and reported gang activity as contributing factors [1] [2]. This geographic concentration is the most robust finding across the compiled analyses and is reflected in both rankings and descriptive articles from February through September 2025 [1] [2].
4. What Changes Over Time — Signs of Overall Decline but Persistent Hotspots
While several sources underscore an overall year-over-year decline in Chicago’s violent and property crime in mid‑2025, they also emphasize that reductions have been uneven and have not erased entrenched hotspots. The Apartment List safety piece cites a roughly 25% drop in violent crime and 11% drop in property crime year-over-year, suggesting improving citywide trends even as certain neighborhoods continue to register high per‑capita rates [3]. Other publications from February to September 2025 note targeted interventions and community efforts, but they still record high absolute or per‑capita crime figures in the same neighborhoods, indicating short-term improvement coexisting with persistent disparities [2] [1].
5. Where Sources Diverge — Ranking Order and Neighborhood Inclusions
Discrepancies across the lists mainly concern which neighborhood exactly ranks first through fifth and whether adjacent areas like West Garfield Park or South Shore make the top five. Some February and April 2025 pieces place West Garfield Park or North Lawndale higher than Austin, while a September 3, 2025 dataset specifically ranks West Englewood first with numerical per‑1,000 rates [4] [1]. These differences reflect source choices on timeframe, crime types included, and normalization (per 1,000 vs. per 100,000), underscoring that a single universal “top five” is sensitive to analytic framing [1] [2].
6. What’s Often Missing — Contextual Factors That Change Interpretation
Most lists focus narrowly on crime counts or rates without fully integrating population changes, policing deployments, socioeconomic indicators, or local violence-interruption programs, which alter lived risk and the meaning of rankings. Sources that mention root causes point to economic disinvestment and gang activity but stop short of unified causal analysis, leaving readers to infer why hotspots persist while citywide crime declines [1] [2]. The absence of standardized methodology across reports and limited longitudinal context means readers should treat top-five lists as signposts, not exhaustive explanations [3] [5].
7. Bottom Line — A Cautious, Evidence-Based Takeaway for 2025
Synthesis of February–September 2025 reporting shows a consistent cluster of high-crime neighborhoods—Englewood/West Englewood, Austin, North Lawndale, and Garfield Park—but the precise top-five order depends on metric choices and reporting dates. Readers seeking definitive rankings should consult the underlying datasets for metric definitions and timeframes; across the reviewed sources, the strongest conclusion is geographic consensus on the South and West Side concentration of elevated crime, paired with evidence of modest citywide declines during 2025 [1] [3] [2].