In March 2026, the City of Huntington quietly did something it had never done before: it put its crime and public safety data online for anyone to see. The result is the Huntington Public Safety Dashboard — a free, publicly accessible tool that gives residents, business owners, and policymakers a clearer picture of what’s actually happening on the city’s streets.
Here’s what it is, where to find it, and what the numbers are telling us.
What Is the Huntington Public Safety Dashboard?
The dashboard’s stated purpose is to provide “the facts you deserve to see” and “accountability you can trust” — giving residents insight into where city resources are being used and how drugs and homelessness are shaping safety and quality of life in Huntington.
It’s built on Microsoft Power BI, an industry-standard data visualization platform, and is hosted at www.publicsafetydashboard.com. You can also access it directly through the city’s website at www.cityofhuntington.com/publicsafetydashboard.
The dashboard was launched on March 24, 2026 — the first time Huntington has made this kind of crime data publicly available in this format.
Where Is Huntington, and Why Does This Matter?
Huntington sits at the southwestern tip of West Virginia, at the point where West Virginia, Ohio, and Kentucky converge along the Ohio River. With a population of around 43,000, it is the second-largest city in the state and home to Marshall University. It is also a city that has faced well-documented challenges with opioid addiction, property crime, and economic decline — issues that directly affect quality of life and business viability.
The dashboard is significant precisely because cities like Huntington have often lacked public-facing data infrastructure. Publishing this data openly is a meaningful step toward evidence-based governance and community accountability.
How to Use the Dashboard
When you visit the site, you’ll see a summary homepage with key statistics broken into seven categories. Each has a “Learn More” button that opens an interactive Power BI report. Here’s what each section covers:
Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) In 2025, the Crisis Intervention Team received more than 5 calls per day triggered by addiction, homelessness, or untreated mental illness. The deeper report shows trends over time and the breakdown of call types.
Nuisance Crime Nuisance crimes — which include offenses like drug possession and trespassing — made up 24% of all offenses in 2025. The interactive report lets you filter by crime type, time period, and location.
Violent Crime On average, Huntington recorded nearly one violent incident every day in 2025, with 304 total violent crimes for the year. An interactive heatmap shows where violent crimes are concentrated geographically across the city.
Property Crime In 2025, an average of 5 residents per day became victims of property crime, largely theft of personal belongings, with 1,817 total property crimes recorded.
Shoplifting The dashboard tracks shoplifting separately, logging 548 incidents in 2025 and estimating an average of more than $58,000 in merchandise stolen per year.
Drug Activity Out of 649 total drug offenses in 2025, 89 involved intent to distribute. The report breaks down drug offense types and maps where incidents are occurring.
Homelessness In 2026, officers are averaging more than 2 contacts with a person experiencing homelessness every day.
What the Maps Show
The interactive heatmaps are among the most valuable features of the dashboard. They allow residents to see not just citywide totals, but where specific crime types are occurring. According to WSAZ’s reporting on the launch, hotspots for violent crime include neighborhoods like Marcum Terrace, Fairfield, downtown Huntington, and West Huntington.
For anyone running a business, managing a property, or making decisions about where to invest or locate in Huntington, these maps provide information that was previously unavailable in any public format.
What City Officials Are Saying
Mayor Patrick Farrell framed the dashboard as a tool for both police operations and public accountability. “I know that our police force does look at it to understand what the trends are in crime,” he said at the launch. “And that’s the most important part — not any one specific piece, but is violent crime up or is it down… where is it happening in the city? Where do we send patrols today or tomorrow? That’s how it’s being used.”
Farrell also emphasized the dashboard’s role in moving public conversation from perception to data: “It’s about getting the information out there so people can deal with facts and not deal with perception anymore.”
What the Numbers Don’t Tell You
Data transparency is a starting point, not an endpoint. The dashboard shows what is happening and where, but it doesn’t explain why crime patterns exist in certain neighborhoods, whether resource allocations are shifting in response to the data, or how Huntington’s numbers compare to similar-sized cities in West Virginia or the region.
For residents and business owners in high-crime areas, the frustration is less about access to data and more about what happens next. As one West Huntington business owner told WSAZ at the launch, “Everybody in the neighborhood wants something changed, but nothing ever is done.”
The dashboard is a meaningful step toward accountability. Whether the data translates into measurable changes on the ground is a question worth tracking — and one the dashboard itself will help answer over time.
The Huntington Public Safety Dashboard is free and publicly available at www.publicsafetydashboard.com. No login or registration is required.
