1. Crime
City crime figures are the violent-crime and property-crime rates per 100,000 residents that agencies reported to the FBI. Grades compare a city's rates to national averages of about 381 violent and 1,954 property offenses per 100,000 residents (FBI UCR).
Known limitation
Violent-crime counts come from the FBI's SRS (Return A) collection, which some agencies underreport for rape; totals may understate rape, but every city is measured the same way. A planned merge with the FBI's newer NIBRS data is intended to restore rape counts. Rates for small-population places are more volatile year to year, because a handful of incidents can move the rate substantially.
2. Schools
The SafeNest School Score combines academic performance, staffing, and school climate into a 0–10 score with a letter grade. Public schools are covered; private schools are outside the CCD's scope.
The 2021-22 CRDC is the most recent Civil Rights Data Collection the Department of Education has published — the multi-year gap reflects the federal release schedule, not SafeNest's.
Known gaps
- Some schools are not in the CRDC for a given year. Where that happens — for example, several New York City selective-admission "exam" high schools — the school appears in SafeNest but is left unscored rather than scored on partial data.
- The climate measure is based on reported disciplinary incidents. Most schools report none, so this dimension distinguishes schools less than the academic and staffing measures do.
3. Sources queried live (not bundled)
Some data is fetched from its source at the time you run a report, rather than shipped inside the app:
- FEMA — federal disaster declaration history for the address's state.
- U.S. Census — American Community Survey 5-year estimates (2024 release) for neighborhood demographics.
- EPA AirNow — current air-quality readings.
- State offender registries — registered-offender records, looked up by location.
4. How the grades and scores work
Neighborhood safety grades reflect a city's crime rates relative to U.S. national averages. The crime grade describes the city as a whole; conditions can vary substantially from block to block within it. School scores combine academic performance, staffing, and school climate drawn from the sources above, expressed as a 0–10 score and an A–F letter grade that is relative to other public schools in the same state.
These grades and scores are algorithmic summaries — informational opinions, not statements of fact or guarantees about any place or institution. They can contain errors or reflect gaps in the underlying public records. Always verify anything important against the primary sources cited above before making a decision.
5. Keeping the data current
Each dataset's vintage is pinned and published (this page, and a machine-readable manifest in our data pipeline). Automated monitors watch every source for a newer release. When one appears, the update is rebuilt and validated against fixed ground-truth checks before it ships — a data change never goes out unverified.
6. Important legal note
SafeNest is not a consumer reporting agency, and its reports must not be used to determine anyone's eligibility for housing, employment, credit, insurance, tenant screening, or any other purpose regulated by the Fair Credit Reporting Act. SafeNest reports are about places, for your personal awareness. See our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.