| For those living in the 9th largest city in Minnesota, it’s important to understand the crime situation. This can help people to take steps to limit any risk to themselves, their loved ones and their property. Thankfully, crime overall is relatively low in Eagan. Overall Crime Rate Eagan is safer than 70 percent of other cities in the United States, with an overall crime rate that’s 36 percent lower than the average for the United States. The crimes per square mile in Eagan is just slightly higher than the national average of 32 at 37. Larger cities typically tend to have a lot more crimes per square mile than smaller cities or towns, so for a relatively large city to be so close to the national average is actually pretty good. Violent Crime Rate When it comes to violent crime, Eagan has a much lower crime rate than the national average, with just 0.78 crimes per 1,000 residents per year compared to 3.8 crimes per 1,000 residents overall in the United States. It has lower murder, rape, robbery and assault crime rates. The chance of a resident becoming a victim of a violent crime is just 1 in 1,275. Property Crime Rate In many cities, even if the violent crime rate is lower than the national average, the property crime rate is higher. Fortunately, this isn’t the case in Eagan. It has just 17.73 property crimes per 1,000 residents each year, compared to a national average of 24.9. Of these, just 1.92 consist of burglaries, compared to a national average of 4.91. Burglaries make up about 13 percent of the crimes committed in the city. The chance of a resident becoming a victim of a property crime is 1 in 56, so it may still be a good idea to take some steps to limit this risk. One potential way to do this is to get a home security system that’s monitored and place the stickers or signs stating this fact clearly in view on the property. Approximately 60 percent of burglars noted in one study that they avoid homes with security systems, which makes a home without one of these systems three times more likely to be targeted. Taking a step like this may be particularly beneficial because it appears the burglary rate in Eagan may be increasing. For example, there were 12 burglaries in May 2016, compared to just 6 in May 2015. Overall, as of May 2016, the burglary rate had increased by about 9.52 percent over 2015 at the same time of the year. There were three burglaries in just one day on December 14, 2016. Police Presence There are 69 officers and 16 support staff in the police department to deal with responding to more than 50,000 calls for service per year. While this means that there are only about 1.2 police officers per 1,000 people, which is lower than the national average of 3.3, the low crime rate may not justify having any more police officers. The average police response time after receiving a 911 call is an average of just 2.35 minutes, which is very good. This might actually even give police time to catch a burglary in progress even though burglars usually aim to be in and out of a home in less than 10 minutes. For this to happen, however, there needs to be a monitored security system to notify the police that the burglary is taking place. Safest Places to Live Although the crime rate isn’t particularly high in the city overall, there are some areas that tend to be safer than others. These include South Robert Trail/Cliff Road, Nicols Road/Cliff Road, the City Center and Galaxi Avenue/Cliff Road. The fact that they are pretty safe could be one of the factors leading to these same areas being among the more popular neighborhoods to live in. Eagan overall is still a safer place to live than other nearby cities such as Bloomington, West St. Paul and Apple Valley. Smaller towns, such as Little Canada, Lake Elmo and Lilydale do have lower crime rates for those willing to live a little further away from the amenities of the city. Security System Considerations There are a number of other potential benefits to having a security system in the home. Homeowner’s insurance policy rates tend to be discounted by up to 20 percent depending on the type of alarm and the insurance company. These systems can be set up to allow for medical emergency alerts to go out to the call center monitoring the security system as well as those for fire or carbon monoxide. This means there may be a faster response to these types of emergencies. Those systems with video monitoring can also sometimes be used to allow homeowners to check in on what kids or sitters are doing when they’re not home. There is a potential drawback, however, in that many cities now charge fees after a certain number of false alarms from the security system go through. Having video verification of the source of the alarm and having the alarm company try to contact you at least three times instead of the standard two to verify whether the alarm is real or not can help limit this risk. Eagan expects to collect approximately $20,000 from burglar alarm fees in 2017, so it’s obvious this is a major problem. In fact, an average of more than 90 percent of alarms from security systems turn out to be false alarms in the United States, costing the police departments a lot of money and wasting a significan amount of time. |
