Amid Fear of Chinatown Crime Uptick, Data Tell Different Story
- Darby Meiran Yang
- 1 day ago
- 5 min read
At a Chinatown Resident Association meeting in August, a woman told Boston Police Officer Frank Wong about a friend who had been robbed on a nearby street.
“I’m scared,” she said through an interpreter, her words reverberating throughout the Josiah Quincy Elementary School cafeteria. Others in the room began firing off questions in a flurry of Cantonese and English, asking about the news they had seen about staffing shortages at the Boston Police Department. Wong, who was speaking at the meeting, said that he was unable to answer those questions at that time, and joked that they could send their grandsons to the academy to join the force.
Despite the concerns around crime, the statistics point to a safer Chinatown — and city — over recent years. According to Sampan’s analysis of BPD data, total reported crime in the Chinatown neighborhood, as defined by the Boston Planning and Development Agency’s boundaries, decreased by 15% between 2021 and 2025. The homicide count was zero in that 5-year period.
BPD’s Chief of Internal and External Communications Mariellen Burns declined to review the analysis, saying it was not BPD’s typical practice to look at non-BPD analysis, and instead gave the department's own breakdown of crime in the neighborhood as it defines it (see map below) and using a different but overlapping time frame. The results also showed a drop in overall major crimes reported from year-to-date numbers (Jan. 1 to Aug. 20) for 2017 to 2026. BPD reported a 39% decrease in “part 1 crime” – which includes criminal homicide, rape, motor vehicle theft and other violent or serious property crimes – from 2017 to now. She said there were decreases in almost every major crime category compared to 2017.
At left is a map of how BPD defines Chinatown. At right is a chart of reported crime for the period of 2017 to Aug. 20, 2026. Source BPD.
True Crime Vs. Perception of Crime
“Chinatown is a relatively safe neighborhood,” said Chulan Huang, who grew up in the area and now works at the Asian American Civic Association, which publishes Sampan. “I can't speak for everybody, obviously, but I think that people seem to feel relatively safe walking up in our neighborhoods.”
“It almost seems like you have a better likelihood of getting attacked by rats than actually getting robbed by somebody,” continued Huang.
Not everyone agreed.
Executive Director of Chinatown Main Street and lifelong Chinatown resident Debbie Ho said she felt that people who commit petty crime or minor assaults had become “more brazen.”
“It seems like they get away with more than they used to,” she told Sampan. Ho attributed this behavior to what she believes are insufficient prosecutions by the courts, which she accused of not taking petty crimes seriously enough.
She referenced stores like CVS, which locks up common items such as toothpaste behind Plexiglas cabinets. “They rob them blind,” she said. “I mean, they steal so much (at) these stores.”
According to the data, despite the declines in most types of reported crimes, theft was a significant problem in the neighborhood. Even though Chinatown’s reported incidents make up 0.6% of Boston's total reported incidents, according to Sampan’s analysis, it made up 14% of its stolen-property records during that five-year period. Reports of stolen property were particularly concentrated on Hudson Street.
Ho added that she is concerned about theft and worries that it’s underreported. “Who reports that, and who doesn’t report it?” she asked.
Graphic created using author's analysis of BPD data from 2021 to 2025.
According to an email from Burns, a key part of BPD’s Safe Shopping Initiative — launched in 2024 through their partner-ship with the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office and retailers — is to encourage reporting of shoplifting to target “repeat, violent and high value offenders.”
“Encouraging reporting of crime or neighborhood concerns is a crucial part of Community Policing,” Burns said. “We need people to tell us what is happening—if they ‘see Something, Say Something.’”
Burns said she believes that this increase in awareness meant these types of crimes were more likely to be reported than in the past, which is part of why the numbers increased.
Huang said he believes crime isn’t as prevalent as it used to be, and sees the neighborhood crime statistics aligning with his own experiences.
“There is more petty crime than there is actual crime in our neighborhoods,” he said, noting that theft from stores is bad, but not necessarily the most harmful to residents.
Wild West? Or Safer Than Ever?
About a week after that Chinatown Resident Association meeting, City Councilor Ed Flynn, whose district includes Chinatown, walked through the neighborhood with a Sampan reporter. Like Ho, he said his hunch is that a lot of crime still goes unreported.
He believes that Boston “just (doesn’t) have enough police officers to make arrests,” referring to how BPD currently is around 400 officers below the Boston Municipal Code’s requirement of 2,500.
“So a lot of the crime just takes place without any documentation. That doesn’t make us a safe city,” he said.
“It’s almost like the wild, wild west here,” Flynn said, gesturing to a crowd of elderly people and passersby around Auntie Kay and Uncle Frank Chin Park, near the Chinatown Gate.
“And the laws are not enforced,” he said. While walking past the Chinatown Gate, he called out to a man speeding by on an electric bike, scolding the biker. When the man waved him off, Flynn said, “See? He doesn’t care.”
Flynn added that it was what he believed to be a lack of enforcement that led him to call for the deployment of the Massachusetts National Guard following violent crimes earlier this summer, including stabbings. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu has consistently pushed back on that suggestion, doubling down on her argument that Boston is one of the safest cities in the U.S.
“It's frankly foolish and irresponsible to make that call,” Wu had said earlier this summer in response to Flynn’s suggestion at the time. “This summer we have seen isolated incidents that have happened, and I think the question should not be a blanket call for federal militarization of our streets.”
Burns further explained to Sampan via email that staffing levels have consistently held at around 2,000-2,100 officers in recent history. BPD had 2,173 officers at the beginning of 2010 and 2,138 in 2026. She also noted that the classes of BPD recruits since Mayor Wu came into office have been larger and more diverse.
According to Burns, although they may have had more officers in the 1980s and 1990s, that time was also the apex of Boston’s reported violent crimes, with homicides peaking in 1990, whereas 2024 saw the lowest number of homicides since 1957.
“Stats are stats,” Burns said.
In a statement following the August community meeting, the Chinatown Resident Association said, “While community safety is a top concern for our community, increased policing is not the only solution.”
“Building a strong community and network of neighbors creates a shared feeling of safety with-in our neighborhood; and increasing investment into affordable housing and good jobs for our community will lead to true community safety."
*The writer defines crime as offenses that can result in imprisonment. The BPD’s dataset, un-der state law, excludes records covered by MGL c.41 §98F. All references to Chinatown refer to the area enclosed by the boundaries set by the Boston Planning and Development Agency.
Comments