Forest Hills is a neighborhood of 72,300 residents in Queens, close to downtown · Updated November 2026
Is Forest Hills in Queens safe?
With an overall CrimeGrade™ of B+, Forest Hills has moderate crime by national standards. Most US neighborhoods have less: 70% of Americans live in neighborhoods with less crime. Violent crime grades better than property crime here, A against C. Queens as a whole grades C+. What matters most is the neighborhood: grades within Forest Hills run from A+ to F, so check the map below.
B+
Overall CrimeGrade™
Safety score 694 of 1,000Less safe than most US neighborhoodsi What this means
30% of Americans live in neighborhoods with more crime than Forest Hills as a whole, and 70% in neighborhoods with less. The typical US neighborhood has a safety score of 838, a CrimeGrade™ of A-. Forest Hills scores 694.
Crime is concentrated in a small share of places, so most neighborhoods score high on the 0 to 1,000 scale. That is why a score in the 800s can still mean more crime than most US neighborhoods.
How to read the map: each area's color compares its crime with the people, homes and cars there, on one national scale, from green for the least crime to red for the most. Each area gets its own color, so a busy shopping center can show red while the homes beside it stay green. The interactive maps load faster on a strong connection. Compare high speed internet in Forest Hills, Queens, NY at ISP Reports.
Who this page is for: homeowners and renters in Forest Hills in Queens, and anyone thinking about buying or renting a home there.
Business and enterprise customers: this free map shows neighborhood areas. CrimeGrade™ business reports map crime at about 66-meter detail and estimate it for one address and type of business. See business reports
What stands out in Forest Hills
Burglary is a strength. Forest Hills grades C for property crime, but burglary grades A+, better than in the neighborhoods where 69% of Americans live.
Aggravated assaults are less common than in most B-graded neighborhoods. Forest Hills has 1.2 aggravated assaults a year per 1,000 residents; for the typical resident of a B-graded US neighborhood, the figure is 2.5.
How Forest Hills compares within Queens
Most of Forest Hills grades well: 71% of residents live in areas graded A or B, and 9% in areas graded D or F. Grades across Forest Hills run from A+ to F; 2% of residents live in areas with less crime than the typical US neighborhood.
71%20%
A or B 71%C 20%D or F 9%
Share of residents, by the overall CrimeGrade™ of the area they live in.
Forest Hills has less crime than 35 of the 47 neighborhoods in Queens. It covers much of the Ridgewood, Elmhurst, and Forest Hills areas and the Jamaica and Kew Ggardens areas.
Is crime going up in Queens?
Reported crime in Queens as a whole has risen since 2019: violent crime is up 15% and property crime up 58%. Murders, rapes, robberies and aggravated assaults went from about 5.7 to 6.6 a year per 1,000 residents (US: 3.7); burglaries, thefts and vehicle thefts from about 15 to 23 (US: 18). Neither changed much from 2023 to 2024.
Violent crime, change since 2019
Property crime, change since 2019
QueensUnited States
Source: crime reports to the FBI from the police departments that serve Queens. The charts follow crimes per resident.
Data table
Year
Violent, Queens
Violent, US
Property, Queens
Property, US
2016
+1%
+4%
+1%
+15%
2017
-4%
+4%
+1%
+12%
2018
-4%
+0%
+4%
+4%
2019
+0%
+0%
+0%
+0%
2020
-4%
+4%
+1%
-8%
2021
+10%
+6%
+8%
-10%
2022
+28%
+5%
+44%
-6%
2023
+15%
+2%
+61%
-7%
2024
+15%
-4%
+58%
-15%
Crime rates and types in Forest Hills
CrimeGrade™ estimates Forest Hills has about 29 reported crimes a year for every 1,000 residents, 23% less than the US as a whole and 37% less than Queens as a whole.
Overall crime
Violent crime
Property crime
Reported crimes a year, per 1,000 residents. These figures include simple assaults and vandalism, which the FBI's violent and property crime rates leave out.
Theft is the most common crime in Forest Hills, about 42% of everything reported, but assault costs more, because each one does more harm.
Each CrimeGrade™ compares a crime with what it affects: people for assaults and robbery, homes for burglary, parked cars for vehicle theft. Rates count crimes per 1,000 residents.
Select a crime's name to see its map above. CrimeGrade™ business reports map each crime at about 66-meter detail.
Where and when crime happens in Queens
The New York City Police Department polices Forest Hills; these figures cover New York as a whole, 2022 to 2024.
In New York as a whole, 50% of burglaries hit homes, against 57% nationally. Thefts from cars happen most often on streets and sidewalks: 79% of them, against 18% nationally.
Crime
Most often at
Busiest time
Burglary
Homes (50%)
Night (midnight to 6 am)
Car theft
Streets and sidewalks (79%)
Evening (6 pm to midnight)
Theft from cars
Streets and sidewalks (79%)
Evening (6 pm to midnight)
Vandalism
Streets and sidewalks (40%)
Evening (6 pm to midnight)
Robbery
Streets and sidewalks (45%)
Evening (6 pm to midnight)
Aggravated assault
Homes (50%)
Evening (6 pm to midnight)
Shares of the crimes reported to police, 2022 to 2024. Reports with no time recorded are left out of the times.
How Forest Hills compares with nearby neighborhoods
Forest Hills has less crime than 9 of its 10 nearest neighborhoods; only Rego Park has less.
Parking lots, transit and walkability in Forest Hills
Two things set Forest Hills apart: it has 0.1 parking-lot spaces per resident, against 2.0 nationally, and 73 buses and trains an hour at the evening rush, where most Americans have none nearby. Places with little parking-lot space tend to report less theft, yet theft runs higher here than that would suggest.
Parking lotsBig lots at stores, offices and apartment complexes. Places with more lot space tend to report more theft.0.1 spaces per residentUS: 2.0Lower than for 94% of residents of US city neighborhoods
Transit serviceBuses and trains an hour at the evening rush. Places with busy transit tend to report more theft and robbery. BestNeighborhood's Transit Grade for Forest Hills: B- (54 of 100).73 trips an hourUS: noneHigher than for 93% of residents of US city neighborhoods
Walk GradeBestNeighborhood's grade for getting through daily life on foot, traced along real walking routes to shops, schools and parks. Walkable places tend to report more theft and assault. 88% of residents here live in walkable areas.A (87 of 100)US: 21Higher than for 90% of residents of US city neighborhoods
Show all 4
Residents in dense blocksBlocks of 10,000 or more people per square mile. Dense neighborhoods tend to report more robbery and car theft.97% of residentsUS: 24%Higher than for 85% of residents of US city neighborhoods
These traits tend to go with more or less crime; none of them causes it on its own. Sources: Census job counts and housing figures, OpenStreetMap and Overture business listings, CrimeGrade™ parking estimates, NASA night-light imagery, US Forest Service tree cover, EPA transit data and BestNeighborhood's Walk Grade.
What crime costs Forest Hills
Crime costs Forest Hills about $600 a year per household, counting police, courts and prisons as well as victims' losses, 50% less than the US figure of $1,205.
Cost of crime per resident, per year
Counting the pain and suffering of victims, which comes almost entirely from violent crime, the full cost comes to about $37 million a year, or $512 per resident.
How CrimeGrade™ works
A CrimeGrade™ shows how much crime an area has compared with the rest of the country, from A+ for the least crime to F for the most. Every neighborhood in the US is graded on the same scale, so a B in Forest Hills means the same as a B anywhere else.
CrimeGrade™ starts from the crimes people report to police and measures each kind of crime against what it affects: people for assaults, homes for burglaries, parked cars for car thefts.
The rates on this page count crimes for every 1,000 people who live here, the way police departments report them.
Comparisons with US neighborhoods use the Census Bureau's block groups, small areas of about 1,400 residents, and count the people who live in each. The figures count crimes reported to police; many crimes, shoplifting above all, never are. Behind the grades, CrimeGrade™ tested 21,607 factors from 125 data families. For business owners, paid CrimeGrade™ location reports estimate crime at a single address for each type of business.
Where the numbers come from
Crime reports that police departments file with the FBI
State crime records and city crime data, where they are published
These are estimates of reported crime for whole areas, not a record of what happened on any one street. CrimeGrade™ updates them once a year and provides them free and without guarantee. Check local sources before you rely on them for a decision.
Schools in Forest Hills, Queens, NY average a SchoolGrade of B+: 64% of students test proficient, against 55% projected for schools like them. Overall, they greatly exceed expectations. See schools in Forest Hills on SchoolGrade
