Lower Northwood, Baltimore, MD Violent Crime Rates and Maps
Lower Northwood is a neighborhood of 12,500 residents in Baltimore, about 4 miles north of downtown · Updated November 2026
How common is violent crime in Lower Northwood?
Violent crime is high in Lower Northwood: an F, with more violent crime than the neighborhoods where 95% of Americans live. Assaults make up 78% of it, and most of those are simple assaults, which involve no weapon and no serious injury. Baltimore as a whole grades F for violent crime.
F
Violent crime CrimeGrade™
Safety score 0 of 1,000More violent crime than nearly all US neighborhoodsi What this means
5% of Americans live in neighborhoods with more violent crime than Lower Northwood as a whole, and 95% in neighborhoods with less. The typical US neighborhood has a violent crime safety score of 860, a CrimeGrade™ of A. Lower Northwood 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 violent crime than most US neighborhoods.
How to read the map: each area's color compares its violent crime with the people who spend time there, on one national scale, from green for the least to red for the most. Each area gets its own color, so a busy downtown or nightlife strip can show red while the homes around it stay green. The interactive maps load faster on a solid connection. Compare high speed internet in Lower Northwood, Baltimore, MD at ISP Reports.
Who this page is for: homeowners and renters in Lower Northwood in Baltimore, 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 about violent crime in Lower Northwood
Robberies run high. Lower Northwood has robberies at more than triple the US rate: 3.0 a year per 1,000 residents, against 0.62 nationally.
How Lower Northwood compares within Baltimore
High violent crime is widespread across Lower Northwood: 80% of residents live in areas graded D or F, and the rest in areas graded C. Violent crime grades across Lower Northwood run from C- to F.
20%80%
C 20%D or F 80%
Share of residents, by the violent crime CrimeGrade™ of the area they live in.
Lower Northwood has less violent crime than 30 of the 55 neighborhoods in Baltimore. It covers much of the Upper Northwood, Hamilton Area, and Frankford areas and the Chinquapin Park-Belvedere, Roland Park-Homewood-Guilford, and Govans areas.
Is violent crime going up in Baltimore?
Reported violent crime in Baltimore as a whole has fallen 14% since 2019. Murders, rapes, robberies and aggravated assaults went from about 19 to 16 a year per 1,000 residents (US: 3.7). Violent crime changed little from 2023 to 2024.
Violent crime, change since 2019
BaltimoreUnited States
Source: crime reports to the FBI from the police departments that serve Baltimore. The charts follow crimes per resident.
Data table
Year
Violent, Baltimore
Violent, US
2016
-4%
+4%
2017
+9%
+4%
2018
-1%
+0%
2019
+0%
+0%
2020
-14%
+4%
2021
-8%
+6%
2022
-8%
+5%
2023
-10%
+2%
2024
-14%
-4%
Violent crime rates and types in Lower Northwood
CrimeGrade™ estimates Lower Northwood has about 16 reported violent crimes a year for every 1,000 residents, 21% more than the US as a whole and 53% less than Baltimore as a whole.
All violent crime
Assaults
Robbery
Reported crimes a year, per 1,000 residents. Violent crime here includes simple assaults, which the FBI's violent crime rate leaves out.
Assault is the most common violent crime in Lower Northwood, about 78% of the total.
Each CrimeGrade™ here compares a violent crime with the people who spend time in an area, not only the people who live there. 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 violent crime happens in Baltimore
The Baltimore Police Department polices Lower Northwood; these figures cover Baltimore as a whole, 2022 to 2024.
In Baltimore as a whole, 49% of aggravated assaults happen at a home, against 53% nationally. Robberies happen most often on streets and sidewalks: 58% of them.
Crime
Most often at
Busiest time
Robbery
Streets and sidewalks (58%)
Evening (6 pm to midnight)
Aggravated assault
Homes (49%)
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.
Violent crime in Lower Northwood and nearby neighborhoods
Lower Northwood has less violent crime than 5 of its 10 nearest neighborhoods.
Nearest first, with each place's distance from Lower Northwood. Beside each violent crime CrimeGrade™ is its safety score, from 0 to 1,000 (higher is safer).
Compared with neighborhoods of similar size and density, Lower Northwood has more violent crime than 84% of them.
Tree cover, transit and walkability in Lower Northwood
Among the traits that tend to go with violent crime, one sets Lower Northwood apart: it has 24 buses and trains an hour at the evening rush, where most Americans have none nearby. Places like that tend to report more robbery, and it runs high here.
Tree coverThe share of land under tree canopy where people live. Leafy neighborhoods tend to report less robbery.20% where people liveUS: 21%Higher than for 79% of residents of US city neighborhoods
Transit serviceBuses and trains an hour at the evening rush. Places with busy transit tend to report more robbery. BestNeighborhood's Transit Grade for Lower Northwood: C (32 of 100).24 trips an hourUS: noneHigher than for 74% 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 assault. 70% of residents here live in car-dependent areas.C- (28 of 100)US: 21Lower than for 60% 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.69% of residentsUS: 24%Higher than for 60% 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 violent crime costs Lower Northwood
Counting the pain and suffering of victims, violent crime costs Lower Northwood about $44 million a year, or $3,509 per resident. The costs that reach a bill, such as medical care, lost work and the justice system, come to about $8.1 million, or $650 per resident.
Billed cost of violent crime per resident, per year
How CrimeGrade™ works
The violent crime CrimeGrade™ covers murder, rape, robbery and assault, from A+ for the least crime to F for the most, on one scale for the whole country.
It weighs each violent crime against the people who spend time in an area, so a busy downtown is graded on its workers and visitors as well as its residents.
The rates on this page count crimes for every 1,000 people who live here, the way police departments report them. Lower Northwood is the other kind of example: few people work in, shop in or visit it, so its crime per resident looks lower than its CrimeGrade™ suggests.
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.
