Night-time safety · Washington, D.C. · data through November 2026

Is Washington, D.C. safe at night?

44% of Washington, D.C.'s reported incidents happen between 6pm and 6am, and 15% of them fall between midnight and 6am. That share swings from 17% to 63% depending on which neighborhood you are in — which is the whole point: the question worth asking is not whether Washington, D.C. is safe after dark, but where and by which route.

These figures describe when reported incidents happen, not how dangerous a street is. Somewhere with a night-time crowd reports more after dark because more people are there — that is a fact about footfall as much as about risk, and it is why the tables below show the count and the share side by side.

Most reported incidents after dark

Neighborhood	6pm–6am	Share	Index
1 Cardozo/Shaw	748	50%	22/100
2 Logan Circle/Shaw	745	49%	22/100
3 Mount Vernon Square	654	45%	24/100
4 Columbia Heights	628	42%	22/100
5 Dupont Circle	581	49%	27/100
6 Truxton Circle	575	47%	26/100
7 Downtown	548	44%	27/100
8 Mount Vernon Triangle	542	46%	27/100
9 Le Droit Park	533	52%	29/100
10 Pleasant Plains	532	44%	26/100
11 Connecticut Avenue/K Street	527	49%	30/100
12 North Capitol Street	514	45%	28/100
13 Howard University	513	54%	30/100
14 Near Northeast	501	43%	27/100
15 Chinatown	476	43%	29/100
16 Lanier Heights	469	36%	26/100
17 Adams Morgan	452	40%	29/100
18 Mount Pleasant	432	38%	28/100
19 Penn Quarter	391	42%	32/100
20 Park View	377	49%	35/100
21 West End	335	45%	38/100
22 Carver	306	47%	38/100
23 Petworth	302	46%	39/100
24 Eckington	298	47%	39/100
25 Kingman Park	296	44%	38/100

Changes most after dark

Ranked by the share of reported incidents that fall between 6pm and 6am, against a Washington, D.C. median of 45%. A high share is not a high total — a quiet neighborhood whose few incidents mostly happen at night sits near the top — so the count is shown beside it.

Neighborhood	Night share	Incidents	Index
Monumental Core	63%	18	96/100
Buzzard Point	61%	195	67/100
South Central	57%	182	70/100
Fort McNair	56%	136	74/100
Langdon	55%	245	63/100
Howard University	54%	949	30/100
Congress Heights	54%	277	54/100
Benning Ridge	53%	211	62/100
Ivy City	53%	484	45/100
Marshall Heights	52%	240	58/100
Le Droit Park	52%	1,025	29/100
Washington Highlands	52%	328	50/100

Least night-weighted

Where what gets reported is most concentrated in daylight hours.

Neighborhood	Night share	Incidents
Wesley Heights	17%	69
Georgetown Reservoir	20%	35
North Portal Estates	24%	27
Colonial Village	24%	47
Foxhall Crescents	25%	42
Spring Valley	26%	42
Chevy Chase	27%	206
Woodley Park	27%	320

Common questions

Is Washington, D.C. safe to walk at night?

44% of Washington, D.C.'s reported incidents happen between 6pm and 6am, and 15% fall in the small hours between midnight and 6am. That is a description of when incidents are reported, not a verdict on the city: the figure varies far more between neighborhoods than it does between cities, from 17% to 63% here. The useful question is which neighborhood and which route, not whether a whole city is safe.

Which neighborhood in Washington, D.C. has the most reported crime at night?

Cardozo/Shaw, with roughly 748 reported incidents between 6pm and 6am — 50% of its total. Somewhere busy usually tops this list because more people are out, so read it alongside the daytime picture on its own page rather than on its own.

Which neighborhood changes most after dark?

Monumental Core is the most night-concentrated in Washington, D.C.: 63% of what is reported there happens between 6pm and 6am, against a Washington, D.C. median of 45%. A high share does not mean a high total — a quiet neighborhood whose few incidents mostly happen at night will rank high here — which is why the table shows the count beside it.

How does SafeRoute use this at night?

The app scores each walking route against the same DC Police data, and can weight it toward the time you are actually walking rather than a flat all-day average. It also shows how much of each route runs on lit streets, and lets you share a walk.

Methodology

Every incident reported to the DC Metropolitan Police carries an occurrence time, which is bucketed into daytime (6am–6pm), evening (6pm–midnight) and the small hours (midnight–6am), split weekday against weekend, and weighted by severity so violence counts for more than shoplifting. A neighborhood's night share is the weighted proportion falling between 6pm and 6am; its night count is that share applied to its total. The city-wide chart weights each neighborhood by its own volume, so a busy centre is not averaged against a quiet suburb as though they were the same size.

Each incident reported to the DC Metropolitan Police (via Open Data DC) is weighted by severity — violence counts for more than shoplifting. For every neighborhood we sum weighted incidents within 1 km of its center, and normalize against citywide crime rates onto a 0–100 index, higher = safer. Boundaries are DCGIS's 132 named neighborhoods, grouped by the 8 city wards. Time-of-day charts use MPD offense start times, severity-weighted. Locations are published at block level for privacy. Pages regenerate as new data is published.