Ogden legend says the town was once so riddled with crime that gangster Al Capone declared it too wild — even for him.
A lot has changed since the Jazz Age. In fact, the number of serious crimes reported in Ogden fell by half between 2016 and 2024.
“This city is extremely safer than it's ever been,” said Police Chief Jake Sube, calling that decrease “monumental.”
Ogden’s crime data reflects Part I offenses, defined as serious crimes that occur regularly and are likely to be reported to the police. They include murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft and arson.
Nationally, the number of Part I crimes decreased by 19.2% from 2016 to 2023, the most recent year with available data. Over the same period, Utah’s numbers fell by 34.6%, and FBI data shows Ogden saw an even sharper decline at 48.8%. These changes reflect total crimes reported, not adjusted for population.
In 2023, Ogden had 266 crimes per 10,000 residents — slightly higher than Sandy’s 264 and West Valley City’s 259 — but much lower than Salt Lake City’s 646.
The police chief credits the decline to the department’s collaboration with other city agencies, like code enforcement and public works. He said violent crime decreased with help from Project Safe Neighborhoods, a federal program that brings together stakeholders across different jurisdictions.
“We have identified to the federal government a particular area in central Ogden that had significantly higher crime rates, and it allowed us some more opportunity for federal crimes and federal charges, which often carry a more significant weight than state charges,” he said.
Sube said the city’s Crime Reduction Unit, which launched in 2007 to focus on reducing street crime, has also helped.
Another factor was collaborating with organizations outside of government.
“We can do anything, but we can't do everything,” said Sube. “It's going to require the community's help, and then community organizations, other stakeholders, to get where we're at.”
He said the police department engages with the community through meet and greets like coffee or cocoa with a cop, the National Night Out Against Crime, and events at the Treehouse Museum and Neptune Skating, for instance.
Sube said he has lofty goals for greater engagement with young people at Ben Lomond High School and the Marshall White Center when it reopens.
“[If] we engage our youth now, then in 10, 15 years, we see the potential ripple effect further down the road, probably well beyond when I'm the chief anymore,” he said.
But despite the numbers, Ogden still hasn’t shaken its reputation as a dangerous place to be.
“We face the perception of crime more than we face actual crime,” Sube said.
Pepper Glass, a professor of sociology at Weber State University, was intrigued by Ogden’s reputation when he arrived in 2011 and heard it was the bad part of Utah. He interviewed residents and non-residents about their perceptions for his 2020 book “Misplacing Ogden, Utah: Race, Class, Immigration, and the Construction of Urban Reputations.”
Glass said the story hasn’t changed. Last semester, for instance, he sent students to interview people on 25th Street.
“[Some of] their parents were worried that they were in this place which was very dangerous,” he said. “There was a student from Logan who said, ‘Oh, my parents said, you know, please call to tell us if you made it back OK.’”
Glass said these perceptions can persist.
“These cultural ideas get lodged in people's heads,” he said. “They carry on for decades, and even as crime rates rise and fall, even as you see in Ogden apartment buildings sprouting up all over downtown and a lot of gentrification and development happening there, this idea is still continuing.”
Glass traced Ogden’s reputation back to its “Junction City” era when Union Pacific and Central Pacific tracks met in the city. It became known for gambling, prostitution and violent crime.
“It was this sleepy Mormon LDS town, and then it completely transformed into this, similar to Las Vegas, this place where travelers come in and they have their fun, and then leave again,” Glass said.
He thinks the city’s diversity also plays into how people perceive it.
“Ogden today is still not only a place where people see that it's dangerous, but it's [a place] where there are a lot of immigrants, where there are a lot of people of color.”
In 2016, the city embraced its past by adopting the slogan “Still Untamed.” Still, Sube wants the public to know how much safer, cleaner and more vibrant Ogden has become since he joined the force in 2000, and he is eager to maintain the positive trend.
“Ogden is not this perception from the ‘80s, ‘70s. We're a different city, and we really want to convey that. We need to get past that perception,” he said.
Macy Lipkin is a Report for America corps member who reports for KUER in northern Utah.