Delaware Crime Rate (Wilmington, Dover, Milford: for sale, real estate market, apartment complexes)

[NEENER1]

My husband and I are also thinking of moving to Delaware. We were looking at New Castle County.. Wilmington, Claymont, Bear... Can anyone tell me what these areas are like as far as crime? Are there good areas in New Castle County? any help would be appreciated. thanks

[TootsieWootsie]

Punch into your address bar: Relocation Crime Lab.
If you do this, you will find out almost all you need to know about any area with any kind of population at all. Good luck, folks.

TootsieWootsie

[JimB]

Get any feedback yet?

[RodFarlee]

It's just not a good story, and most Delawareans don't want to talk about it.

[Joe84323]

I was reading these posts, and thought I would answer as an educated Delawarean.

The crime rate in Delaware is excellent below the canal. You shouldn't have any problems except for a small, mildly seedy area in Dover.

I've seen people say Wilmington has horrible crime, and to stay away from Wilmington. This is absolutely true in every neighborhood in Wilmington except for the Northwestern part of the city, surrounding Trolley Square, Little Italy, and another small area between Union Street and Canby Park. Should you have any doubts in how bad the area is, drive from 44th Street down Market Street, and make a right on 4th Street, which cuts the city in half. Absolutely no reason to live in this majority of the city if you can help it.

You shouldn't really be interested in MOVING TO Wilmington city any more than you would want to move to Trenton, Camden, or Newark, with the exception of the Northwestern part of the city which is rich and isolated.

HOWEVER, beyond Wilmington's city limits lie suburban areas which are called "Wilmington," but are suburbs of Wilmington, and not in the city proper. Most of these are very nice areas, and have zip codes of 19803, 19810, 19809, and 19808. The zip codes which are in city limits and have very nasty crime rates are 19801, 19802, 19805. The decent Wilmington zip codes are 19806, and the uber-rich 19807.
There is also 19804 which is working class, with equal amounts of good and bad.

The only other area in Delaware you may worry about is 19720, New Castle, which has crime rates comparable to Wilmington's.

The desired suburbs of Wilmington are mostly 19803, 19810, 19707, 19807* 19808, some 19703, 19702, and 1971#.

Good Luck!

[RodFarlee]

Joe, having lived 24 years in the areas you describe as desirable (19809, 19810, 19803: suburban Brandywine Hundred), I believe my experience is typical. I had my apartment burglarized, my house broken into, knew several neighbors who had as well, read reports of burglaries and car thefts within blocks of my home every year, had my car broken into once and vandalized twice, my next-door neighbor's SUV was stolen and never recovered, a neighborhood convenience store was repeatedly robbed at gunpoint, and I knew a store owner who was murdered during an armed robbery (never solved) in his store within blocks of my "safe, middle class" suburban home.

Crime statistics are widely available on the web. I cannot find any area of New Castle County north of the canal which is not above the national average (although as Joe notes, some are far worse than that, none are better).

I'm sure that many property crimes in New Castle County are never reported (there's not much point: you'll wait for hours for a cop to show up, tell you there's nothing they can do, and act like "why did you bother me, I've got better things to do"). So reality must be worse than even the stats indicate.

To see a map of crimes reported in the last 90 days in any neighborhood of NCC:
http://www.co.new-castle.de.us/publicsafety/crime/ (broken link)

To see an overview of the stats : http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/decrime.htm
The best one can say is maybe things may be slowly getting better, and crime is bad but isn't the worst contribution to Delaware's quality of life.

[Winter Wren]

Originally Posted by leaving nj

Thank You all for the replys.I am looking in Kent county.It appears to me alot of towns have high rapes??? It shows on (Moderator cut: linking to competitors sites is not allowed) that Dover has 16 rapes Milford has 5 ,Harrington has 5 rapes.These number seem high to me for towns with populations under 100,000

Dover has a military base, lots of bars and regular NASCAR and auto racing weekends.

[Panks]

Originally Posted by Joe84323

The crime rate in Delaware is excellent below the canal. You shouldn't have any problems except for a small, mildly seedy area in Dover.

could someone please explain this to me since the Canal runs north to south..how can there be an area below the canal? what is the name of the first town that is "below" it?

thanks

[rockky]

Panks, The C & D Canal runs east/west through DE. It may take a slight dip to the south as it travels through MD to the Chesapeake Bay.

Along the Delaware River on Rt. 9, the first town south of the Canal is Port Penn. Delaware City is just north of the Canal along the river.

Taking the main road (Rt. 1) south, St. George is just above, and some of it below, the Canal. The first town of any size is Odessa. Boyd's Corner doesn't count.

Chesapeake and Delaware Canal (C & D Canal)

[Panks]

Thank you so much! I seriously couldn't find it before you told me what cities to look for I'm embarrassed to admit that I was assuming the Delaware river was "the canal" since Google maps doesn't have a name on it for some reason...
Now I know what it means to stay above the canal!

I read that the 19803 area is a good area but the 19810 is not that great. Since they are right next to each other, do you think 19803 is getting better or worse?

I have less than a month to figure out where to move to with my elderly parents, who are pretty traumatized by having to move in the first place...so I can't screw up and move them to an unsafe neighborhood. Is it possible to buy a multi-family house (1 unit above and one below) in a good area for $350,000 or less?

Thank you