Data

Author
Affiliation

Hung Kit William Chiu

UCSB Econ

Published

May 6, 2025

Modified

November 19, 2025

This project bears resemblance to some other open-source projects on police data, such as OpenPoliceData, Police Data Initiative, and the Stanford Open Policing Project, however, this project has been an independent effort that focuses on

  1. crime incidents (rather than policing efforts such as stops or use of force),

  2. harmonizing crime categories across agencies and time,

  3. mapping incidents to Census geographic units.

The latter two objectives make the cleaned data particularly useful for research in the social sciences. The project is currently semi-closed-source, but with plans of going open-source subject to the research progress.

Location of cities included for analysis

Survey of cities

More than 350 cities (or “incorporated places”) in the US have been surveyed to acquire crime data from their data portals. An open data portal is typically set up and run by the city (or sometimes county) to publish data of public interest. The local police departments sometimes have their own data portals, or they publish data through their respective cities’ portals. The 350 cities represent all US cities with somewhere above 100,000 population in 2023 (the cutoff is not exact due to there being multiple population estimates). The cutoff of 100,000 is by all means not convenient and is used on purpose to leverage the large scale, publicly available data that has been overlooked by researchers. Researchers have a tendency to stop data collection as soon as they have enough statistical power, and the author of this project is dismissive of such practice. Below presents the survey result. Population estimates are taken from the 5-year American Community Survey. Start Date is the approximate time when the data starts to have substantial coverage.

Ready-to-use data

After cleaning and linking to Census variables, the product looks like the following, with New York City (NYC) in 2022 for demonstration. NYC is made up of 5 boroughs, each also being a county (Bronx - Bronx County, Brooklyn - Kings County, Manhattan - New York County, Queens - Queens County, and Staten Island - Richmond County), thus the city conveniently becomes a “nested” geographic unit.

IncidentYear GEOID City Aggravated Assault All Other Offenses Arson Burglary Counterfeiting-Forgery Criminal Homicide Curfew-Loitering-Vagrancy Disorderly Conduct Driving Under the Influence Drug-Narcotic Family Offense Fraud Gambling Kidnapping-Abduction Larceny-Theft Liquor Law Motor Vehicle Theft Non-reportable Other Assault Pornography-Obscene Material Prostitution Robbery Sex Offense Stolen Property Trespass of Real Property Unclassifiable Vandalism Weapon Law pop pop2 nonHispCt white black AIandAN asian NHandOPI hisp wtHisp blkHisp nomoveCt nomove transport transportCar transportPublic transportPublicBus transportPublicStreetcar transportPublicSubway transportPublicRail transportTaxi transportMoto transportBicy transportWalk singleFamCt singleFam povertyCt poverty incAgg foodStampCt foodStamp highLaborCt highUnemp rentCt rentAgg empRetail empService empServiceRetail empSalesOffice transportClose whitePct blkPct asianPct hispPct nomovePct singleFamPct povertyPct incPerCap foodStampPct highUnempPct rentAvg transportClosePct transportClosePerCap
2022 36005000100 NYC 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4446 4446 3274 1098 2000 9 123 0 1172 800 64 4446 1871 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 19849600 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.2469636 0.4498426 0.0276653 0.2636077 0.4208277 NA NA 4464.597 NA NA NA NA 0.0000000
2022 36005000200 NYC 21 74 1 4 1 0 0 15 0 3 0 2 0 0 72 0 8 5 33 0 0 13 0 3 0 0 25 2 4870 4870 1761 83 1281 0 299 0 3109 667 192 4870 4618 2312 1084 843 361 277 0 0 20 0 0 222 4863 67 1076 68 163783100 1425 196 423 0 567 1004600 359 503 26 647 1065 0.0170431 0.2630390 0.0613963 0.6383984 0.9482546 0.0137775 0.0631970 33631.027 0.1375439 0.0000000 1771.7813 0.4606401 0.2186858
2022 36005000400 NYC 13 54 0 5 1 0 0 9 0 1 0 1 0 0 74 0 17 1 26 0 0 6 0 1 0 0 17 1 6257 6257 2045 283 1559 0 103 0 4212 507 338 6152 5680 3140 1693 959 402 503 0 0 0 0 148 175 6238 193 1516 109 240996800 2309 384 408 0 900 1320900 464 526 0 905 1282 0.0452293 0.2491609 0.0164616 0.6731661 0.9232770 0.0309394 0.0718997 38516.350 0.1663058 0.0000000 1467.6667 0.4082803 0.2048905
2022 36005001600 NYC 29 66 0 6 3 0 0 23 3 3 0 12 0 0 172 0 10 10 42 0 0 24 0 2 2 0 15 11 6177 6177 2670 106 2132 213 148 0 3507 445 160 6153 5617 2391 968 1058 446 601 0 0 17 0 13 128 5952 149 1616 225 172386200 2205 955 469 50 1751 2194900 294 989 7 458 1199 0.0171604 0.3451514 0.0239599 0.5677513 0.9128880 0.0250336 0.1392327 27907.755 0.4331066 0.1066098 1253.5123 0.5014638 0.1941072
2022 36005001900 NYC 43 151 0 68 10 1 0 32 10 2 0 18 0 1 154 0 58 51 79 0 0 23 0 3 3 0 106 8 4064 4064 2346 508 1298 34 9 342 1718 212 253 4017 3439 1923 330 1040 209 831 0 0 15 0 20 252 3556 251 837 193 129047100 1408 404 456 25 1337 2408800 267 641 0 350 1312 0.1250000 0.3193898 0.0022146 0.4227362 0.8561115 0.0705849 0.2305854 31753.716 0.2869318 0.0548246 1801.6455 0.6822673 0.3228346
2022 36005002000 NYC 39 191 2 18 2 0 0 56 1 25 0 12 0 2 88 0 22 11 82 0 0 20 0 3 3 0 46 9 8376 8376 3217 42 2738 0 0 0 5159 1221 514 8350 8159 2633 750 1579 599 980 0 0 29 0 0 238 8346 603 1961 549 228090100 3642 2088 1131 4 3144 2116300 278 1088 72 632 1817 0.0050143 0.3268863 0.0000000 0.6159265 0.9771257 0.0722502 0.2799592 27231.387 0.5733114 0.0035367 673.1234 0.6900874 0.2169293
2022 36005002300 NYC 17 68 1 6 2 0 0 18 0 1 0 2 0 0 22 0 6 5 28 0 0 7 0 0 1 0 22 2 4528 4528 1556 7 1499 0 0 0 2972 483 437 4528 4285 1161 195 745 221 524 0 0 13 0 0 186 4523 397 1097 387 60099900 1923 1044 307 75 1923 1437000 146 576 6 251 931 0.0015459 0.3310512 0.0000000 0.6563604 0.9463339 0.0877736 0.3527803 13272.946 0.5429017 0.2442997 747.2699 0.8018949 0.2056095
2022 36005002400 NYC 9 13 1 2 1 0 0 3 1 1 0 1 0 0 8 0 2 3 9 0 0 7 0 0 0 0 6 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA
2022 36005002500 NYC 56 135 2 23 12 1 0 31 3 37 1 8 0 0 316 0 17 18 109 0 0 42 0 4 4 0 47 18 5642 5642 1496 305 1129 0 0 0 4146 746 433 5562 4980 1989 179 1192 161 1031 0 0 31 0 39 419 5431 266 1306 478 80228200 1944 841 650 83 1843 2124900 181 783 26 209 1650 0.0540588 0.2001063 0.0000000 0.7348458 0.8953614 0.0489781 0.3660031 14219.816 0.4326132 0.1276923 1152.9571 0.8295626 0.2924495
2022 36005002701 NYC 22 67 1 7 3 1 0 41 1 11 0 7 0 0 51 0 6 7 43 0 0 19 0 3 0 1 22 6 3335 3335 949 16 917 0 16 0 2386 161 325 3270 3172 955 82 708 7 701 0 0 0 0 0 114 3329 299 793 411 40494700 1159 670 246 65 1136 1064500 154 575 76 185 822 0.0047976 0.2749625 0.0047976 0.7154423 0.9700306 0.0898168 0.5182850 12142.339 0.5780846 0.2642276 937.0599 0.8607330 0.2464768
2022 36005002702 NYC 25 37 0 7 3 1 0 18 5 5 0 6 0 0 33 0 7 8 38 0 0 9 0 2 0 0 22 6 5000 5000 1422 7 1359 0 0 0 3578 207 243 4862 4277 1671 206 1269 252 1017 0 0 35 0 0 137 4479 300 1034 469 78081600 1530 813 504 50 1491 1784900 352 780 0 526 1406 0.0014000 0.2718000 0.0000000 0.7156000 0.8796791 0.0669792 0.4535783 15616.320 0.5313725 0.0992063 1197.1160 0.8414123 0.2812000
2022 36005002800 NYC 19 79 0 5 3 0 0 17 3 1 0 8 0 0 115 0 24 13 51 0 0 20 0 1 1 1 33 6 5230 5230 3390 31 3359 0 0 0 1840 437 104 5196 5173 2630 1075 1149 120 974 55 0 0 0 0 86 5225 275 1225 29 197797100 2542 252 464 0 2306 2756600 239 671 41 426 1235 0.0059273 0.6422562 0.0000000 0.3518164 0.9955735 0.0526316 0.0236735 37819.713 0.0991345 0.0000000 1195.4033 0.4695817 0.2361377
2022 36005003100 NYC 17 49 0 8 3 0 0 21 1 1 0 6 0 0 69 0 22 3 23 0 0 10 0 0 0 1 26 2 2559 2559 1090 36 831 0 146 0 1469 398 146 2519 2487 1080 180 762 133 629 0 0 24 0 0 36 2559 369 778 127 58765300 1031 488 280 114 900 1366800 81 512 0 206 798 0.0140680 0.3247362 0.0570535 0.5740524 0.9872965 0.1441970 0.1632391 22964.166 0.4733269 0.4071429 1518.6667 0.7388889 0.3118406
2022 36005003300 NYC 15 42 2 3 5 1 0 23 2 0 0 3 0 1 33 0 8 9 25 0 0 9 0 0 2 0 21 4 3559 3559 1262 85 1081 0 0 0 2297 384 233 3559 3484 846 217 413 32 381 0 0 54 0 19 83 3424 392 780 327 49035800 1220 704 180 0 1058 1090600 95 451 61 177 515 0.0238831 0.3037370 0.0000000 0.6454060 0.9789267 0.1144860 0.4192308 13777.971 0.5770492 0.0000000 1030.8129 0.6087470 0.1447036
2022 36005003500 NYC 27 51 0 1 3 0 0 19 4 5 0 7 0 0 63 0 17 6 47 0 0 12 0 2 3 0 34 1 3899 3899 919 112 705 0 0 0 2980 561 893 3876 3685 1347 276 865 109 756 0 0 0 0 0 117 3855 487 1128 292 77401900 1478 754 351 0 1420 1832400 128 523 0 205 982 0.0287253 0.1808156 0.0000000 0.7642985 0.9507224 0.1263294 0.2588652 19851.731 0.5101488 0.0000000 1290.4225 0.7290275 0.2518595
2022 36005003700 NYC 14 18 0 3 3 0 0 5 2 5 0 7 0 0 28 0 7 14 18 0 0 12 0 1 0 0 15 6 331 331 66 15 51 0 0 0 265 30 85 305 305 132 11 45 20 25 0 0 28 0 0 0 324 23 80 0 6280500 188 102 0 0 188 119800 0 47 0 50 45 0.0453172 0.1540785 0.0000000 0.8006042 1.0000000 0.0709877 0.0000000 18974.320 0.5425532 NA 637.2340 0.3409091 0.1359517
2022 36005003800 NYC 3 16 0 1 0 0 0 4 0 0 0 1 0 0 11 0 1 2 10 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 4 1 1182 1182 228 16 176 0 36 0 954 450 24 1135 1075 497 250 228 37 173 18 0 0 0 0 11 1150 43 304 33 44416500 366 49 156 11 214 281400 63 158 0 172 239 0.0135364 0.1489002 0.0304569 0.8071066 0.9471366 0.0373913 0.1085526 37577.411 0.1338798 0.0705128 1314.9533 0.4808853 0.2021997
2022 36005003900 NYC 67 135 0 15 18 0 0 53 14 54 0 23 0 0 133 0 16 30 98 0 0 29 182 2 1 0 57 21 6227 6227 462 155 224 68 15 0 5765 674 122 6227 6042 2278 355 1347 279 974 65 29 0 0 0 431 6103 259 1131 390 129275100 2330 1544 819 50 2247 2761800 221 1057 0 513 1778 0.0248916 0.0359724 0.0024089 0.9258070 0.9702907 0.0424381 0.3448276 20760.414 0.6626609 0.0610501 1229.1055 0.7805092 0.2855308
2022 36005004001 NYC 7 28 0 2 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 3 0 0 28 0 13 2 15 0 0 7 0 0 0 0 11 0 1409 1409 609 60 158 17 343 0 800 145 36 1399 1364 576 215 292 97 195 0 0 0 0 0 34 1409 26 359 36 55978300 529 76 123 13 293 444600 59 165 12 145 326 0.0425834 0.1121363 0.2434351 0.5677786 0.9749821 0.0184528 0.1002786 39729.099 0.1436673 0.1056911 1517.4061 0.5659722 0.2313698
2022 36005004100 NYC 44 152 2 13 5 1 0 42 0 21 0 4 0 0 88 0 12 9 88 0 0 21 0 3 2 2 57 15 6583 6583 1982 30 1896 0 56 0 4601 1029 814 6534 5924 2469 196 1569 358 1211 0 0 222 0 28 194 6482 197 1563 540 115443200 2444 1159 494 0 2260 2030100 234 1128 36 419 1791 0.0045572 0.2880146 0.0085068 0.6989215 0.9066422 0.0303919 0.3454894 17536.564 0.4742226 0.0000000 898.2743 0.7253949 0.2720644

For any given years (or groups of years, or groups of months if needed) and any given crimes, snapshots like the following can be produced using mapView,

Copyright © April 2025. Hung Kit Chiu.