Mayor Wilson: The public awaits your plans for reversing the city’s high crime rates

Most new political leaders set the agenda for their administration in their initial weeks in office through major speeches and announcements. While Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson’s blog has numerous mentions of her desire to increase Seattle’s public housing projects, there are no mentions of what the mayor will do to reduce the city’s serious crime problem and what her plans are to increase police staffing.

Using up to date FBI crime data, NeighborhoodScout.com ranks U.S. cities by various factors and currently lists Seattle at the very bottom on crime issues, stating 99% of U.S. cities are currently safer than Seattle. The website’s 2024-2025 data reveals that 57 out of 1,000 Seattle residents have been impacted by either violent crime (7.5/1,000) or property crime (49.5/1,000). By comparison, out of 1,000 New York City residents, 41.6 have been impacted by crime, Chicago scored 39/1,000, and Los Angeles 22/1,000.

Security.org used FBI crime data released last summer to tell a similar story. It shows that Seattle has the 4th-worst crime rate in the country, at 178% higher than the national average. Especially troublesome was property crime (burglary, auto theft, vandalism, etc.), where Seattle ranked behind just Memphis and Portland for the most per capita crime incidents in the country.

In the early 2000s, it would have been hard to imagine Seattle’s crime rate constantly on par (or worse than) New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. But a couple of decades of questionable policies (such as “defund the police”) have made Seattle a dangerous place to live and work.

The situation is even more difficult after the exodus of 700 police officers starting in 2020. While departures of well-trained officers has slowed considerably, Seattle is still at least 500 officers short of staffing levels (approximately 1,400 – 1,500 officers) of comparable cities. The FBI estimates that major U.S. cities have an average police-to-resident ratio of 2.6 officers per 1,000 residents.  Seattle is half that at 1.3/1,000.

Crime and unsafe conditions are the top reasons for downtown Seattle’s record-breaking 35.6% vacancy rate. This has been a large reversal since 2019 when the vacancy rate was only 4.9%. Both office and retail businesses are moving to locations where their employees and customers feel safe.

Downtown Seattle has the highest property costs in the city, and the high vacancy rate is causing financial loss for local governments due to plummeting collections of both property and sales taxes. This is a major factor for why the City of Seattle has a significant budget deficit (at least $140 million) again this year, forcing possible 10% cuts in the city’s social programs.

Crime is impacting all neighborhoods in the city. Normally safe Magnolia has seen a sharp increase in retail crime since the start of 2026, which has led to community meetings where residents are demanding more help from the city. This has forced the Seattle Police Department (SPD) to redeploy more of its limited resources to increase neighborhood patrols.

Thus far most of Mayor Wilson’s public mentions of the SPD have been in her directives on how it should interact with federal immigration agents. These guidelines have raised concerns with Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) leaders that they will hamper their ability to keep the peace if future protests become violent. This latest disagreement is among the growing list of conflicts the union has with the new mayor. Previously:

• Then Mayor-elect Wilson appointed two controversial anti-police activists (Jesse Hagopian and Lisa Daugaard), to her transition team.
• A poorly developed memo from the mayor’s team led Chief of Police Shon Barnes and SPOG leaders to believe the mayor wanted to reverse the city’s procedures for drug possession and public use. Instead of threatening incarceration (to encourage the suspect to accept addiction treatment), the memo suggested placing the arrested suspects into controversial diversion programs.
• At a recent public forum, Mayor Wilson stated that due to the city’s large deficit, she is looking for “progressive revenue options” (i.e. more taxes on businesses) and she is including the police department as she considers 5% and 10% budget cuts.

SPOG is the voice of the rank-and-file police officers, and its views are generally aligned with those the city is attempting to recruit to the department. When the recruits do their research on job opportunities, it will not bode well for Seattle to see so many disputes between the mayor and the union that would represent them.

The lack of support from the city’s political leadership caused many officers to leave in the early 2020s. If the mayor’s relationship with SPOG does not improve, the same reason will stop the recruits from making Seattle their home.

Mayor Wilson made public safety a centerpiece of her campaign. Thus far, she has said very little about how she plans to make Seattle safer or how she will rebuild SPD’s workforce. Hopefully, this will change soon, and progress can be made in reversing the high crime rates, making residents feel safer, and rebuilding downtown Seattle’s retail community through creating a safer environment for employees to work and for consumers to shop.