Wellston is a city of 1,770 in St. Louis County, about 6 miles northwest of downtown St. Louis · Updated November 2026
Is Wellston, MO safe?
Wellston is among the higher-crime places in the US: an overall CrimeGrade™ of F, with more crime than the neighborhoods where 95% of Americans live. Property crime grades better than violent crime here, C against F.
F
Overall CrimeGrade™
Safety score 0 of 1,000Less safe than nearly all US neighborhoodsi What this means
5% of Americans live in neighborhoods with more crime than Wellston as a whole, and 95% in neighborhoods with less. The typical US neighborhood has a safety score of 838, a CrimeGrade™ of A-. Wellston scores 0.
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 Wellston, MO at ISP Reports.
Who this page is for: homeowners and renters in Wellston, 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 Wellston
Car thefts and acts of vandalism both run high. In Wellston, each runs at more than triple the US rate: 11.9 car thefts and 24.3 acts of vandalism a year per 1,000 residents, against 2.7 and 5.5 nationally.
Crime rates and types in Wellston
CrimeGrade™ estimates Wellston has about 108 reported crimes a year for every 1,000 residents, about triple the rate for the US as a whole and more than double the rate for Missouri.
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 Wellston, about 35% of everything reported.
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 Wellston
The University City Police Department polices Wellston, and these figures cover every place it serves, 2022 to 2024.
In Wellston, 65% of burglaries hit homes, against 57% nationally. Thefts from cars happen most often on streets and sidewalks: 37% of them, against 18% nationally.
Crime
Most often at
Busiest time
Burglary
Homes (65%)
Night (midnight to 6 am)
Car theft
Streets and sidewalks (43%)
Morning (6 am to noon)
Theft from cars
Streets and sidewalks (37%)
Morning (6 am to noon)
Vandalism
Streets and sidewalks (38%)
Morning (6 am to noon)
Aggravated assault
Homes (54%)
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 Wellston compares with nearby cities
Wellston has less crime than 3 of its 5 nearest cities; only Hillsdale and St. Louis have less.
Counting police, courts and prisons as well as victims' losses, crime costs Wellston about $5,131 a year per household, more than triple 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 $17 million a year, or $9,558 per resident.
How the cost breaks down
Crime
Cost a year
Per resident
Murder
$1.8 million
$990
Rape
$110,000
$61
Robbery
$140,000
$76
Assault
$670,000
$376
Burglary
$50,000
$28
Theft
$340,000
$193
Vehicle theft
$320,000
$183
Arson
$21,000
$12
Vandalism
$310,000
$172
Total
$3.7 million
$2,092
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 Wellston 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
Published research on what crime costs victims and communities
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 Wellston, MO average a SchoolGrade of F: 10% of students test proficient, against 13% projected for schools like them. Overall, they underperform expectations. See schools in Wellston on SchoolGrade
