UCR Crime Data and Viz
Downloaded the latest complete Uniform Crime Reports dataset of crime reports in Alameda County for 2011. We have added this to our running spreadsheet dating back to 1999. Thought I would add this to a good spreadsheet and play with some of there free apps!
If you want the spreadsheet go here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AkPhgUj0a5gEdGprRmhaeVlrTjlwbVFFendSV2ZYUEE&usp=sharing
Otherwise, play with the motion chart below.
New Crime Data Available
Get the latest crime figures released by the FBI.
Map or download rates and counts of violent and property crime for cities in Alameda County. We offer data going back 10 years as both mappable layers in our dynamic web map or as a downloadable spreadsheets for your own desktop programs. Sorry about the excel format, if you change this to a more friendly format, please send it back to us and we will post it. Also, this data has several caveats including the different ways that localities report crimes and in the different estimates for population used to calculate rates.
Our Method | Oakland's 100 Blocks Plan
To read about our results and why we published this study read this article.
METHODOLOGY
The Data
To build our model of the 100 most violent blocks in Oakland, we used ArcGIS (a desktop geographic information system) to determine the intensity of crime for every city block. With crime report data, however, there are some key assumptions and limitations to bear in mind:
- Crime reports provided by Oakland Police reflect only a portion of the actual crimes in Oakland;an unknown amount of crimes are not reported.
- Recorded locations of reported crimes are typically between 70 - 80 percent accurate.
- No way to know which side of the street nor which end of a block,e.g. 1800 block Grand Ave
- No precise location recorded, e.g. across the street from Bank of America ATM
Downloads:
- Our model- Python script
- Our model- description
- Our model- model layout image
Our take on Oakland's 100 Blocks Plan
In order to deploy resources such as police presence most effectively, it behooves a city to know where criminal activity is most prevalent. Because of the impact on the City and its residents, of most concern are areas where shootings and homicides occur most frequently. This reasoning appears to be a driving factor in the Mayor's Safety Plan released in late 2011: according to the limited city documents released for the plan, 90% of homicides and shootings occurred in 100 blocks. To date the city has published a low resolution map of the 100 blocks but has refused to specify blocks, regions or to provide any useful methodology (exact data used, procedures, assumptions). As a very high profile project, it is unusual for there to be so much secrecy around the exact location of this place-based effort.
As a trusted community intermediary and data resource we have received dozens of inquiries regarding which 100 blocks are the focus of the plan and the crime statistics used to support the selection of these 100 blocks. Since the city chose not to release the details of the blocks or their methods and data, we decided to conduct our own analysis to see if we could develop a similar 100 blocks model with available data.
In this document we share the results of our analyses along with tables and maps we produced and some observations of the implications of our findings. Additionally, we detail our methodology and will make the raw data used for this analysis available for others to replicate and confirm our results. We conclude this report with some lessons about public data that the 100 block example provides for policy makers and community.
Research Summary
Using Oakland Police Department (OPD) data on crime reports from 2007 through 2011, we built two models: the first model covered the entire five-year period and answered the question of which 100 blocks accounted for the most shootings and homicides in the City of Oakland; in the second model we focused only on the 2011 calendar year and identified the 100 blocks with the highest levels of shootings and homicides.
Within the two models we differentiated between two types of shooting offense categories. Our primary analysis includes more serious shootings involving individuals (PC245 A2, PC245 B, PC245 D, PC664/187 A, and PC245 C). We also developed a secondary model and summary statistics using the crime reports that included all types of shootings which includes shootings at vehicles, buildings, firearm exhibition, or firearm discharges (PC245 C, PC246, PC246.3, PC247 B, PC417 C, PC417.8, and PC417.3).
Our Results
In the five year model (2007-2011), we determined that 17%, or 598 homicides and shootings, occurred within the top 100 blocks in the City. There were a total of 3601 total homicides and shootings in the City over this period.
In 2011, we found that 20% of homicides and shootings (165) were within the top 100 blocks in the City, compared to 845 homicides and shootings in the City overall. (Note that the 100 blocks we identified from just 2011 data varied from those identified using the 5-year data set.)
| Table 1 | ||
| Primary Model 2007 - 2011 Homicides & Shootings | ||
| Within USC 100 Blocks | % Within USC 100 Blocks | Oakland Total |
| 598 | 17% | 3601 |
| Primary Model 2011 Homicides & Shootings | ||
| Within USC 100 Blocks | % Within USC 100 Blocks | Oakland Total |
| 165 | 20% | 845 |
Oakland Crime Maps for 2011 by Police Beat
Like most measures of social outcomes and neighborhood indicators, crime is not evenly dispersed across the city, so a citywide average does not speak to the reality of every neighborhood in the same way. Our beat level crime maps are powerful tools for examining distribution and change in crime across our city. In 2011 we saw shifts in crime in both the flatlands and the hills, and with some crimes that saw drops overall there were certain neighborhoods that experienced marked increases in these very crimes.
These maps represent crime reports that have been aggregated to police beats for a number of key crime types including robbery, shootings, burglary, property and violent crimes as well as homicides. The accompanying table shows the beat level report summaries for the city as a whole. You can download the complete set of beat level maps here (large 12MB PDF) or click on the maps for a popup slideshow in your browser.
To see a summary table of all crimes in Oakland compared with the past three years and our innovative Crime Calendars check out this post.
(Click image to enlarge)
2011 Violent Crime
2011 Oakland Crime Review
In 2011, Oakland experienced a number of changes in crime patterns when compared to previous years. Overall, reported violent crime in 2011 was almost identical in volume to 2010 with 6,805 reports, while property crimes saw a 5.4% increase over the prior year, up to 25,995. Major changes in citywide indicators included a drastic jump in assaults with a firearm [245(a)(2)] up 25.5% in 2010, and up 27.6% compared to the previous five-year average. Domestic violence saw a marked drop of almost 20 percent, which is the unusual due to the fact that domestic violence is the only crime benchmark that typically increases with high unemployment levels. Likewise, reported incidences of rape were down 26.3%, and both drugs and prostitution saw large drops of 43.4% and 16.8%, respectively. However, there is a caveat that comes with drug and vice crime report statistics: reported drug and vice crimes are almost entirely dependent on police action--no active raids or stings effectively means no crime from a pure statistical perspective.
While in-home robbery was down from a high in 2010, the 198 reports still represent a 32.9% increase compared to the past five years. Carjackings declined compared to 2010, and over previous years, down 24.5% from 2010 to 2011 (188).
To see how crime was distributed across the city and how it changed according to police beats, read our related post on beat level crime maps.
Download the full table of data in a Google spreadsheet here.
* Over/Under compares the change in 2011 from the previous 5-year average.
* Note these totals are based on all reported crimes provided by OPD and will not accurately reflect official UCR reported totals due to
methodology differences. These numbers represent total counts of reports of each crime type.
Download the full PDF version of the 2011 Oakland Crime Calendars here.
Oakland Stressors - 2011 Model Update
The City of Oakland and Urban Strategies Council have developed a new Stressor model for the city using the latest available neighborhood data.
This model provides a rank for every Community Police Beat in Oakland that indicates the relatively high or low levels of 'stress' on a neighborhood. The new model has been adjusted to account for newly available data and also certain data such as poverty that are no longer available from the Census Bureau. The indicators of stress include arrests, crime reports, food stamp recipients, youth incarceration and probation, violent suspensions and chronic absence for OUSD students.
Each Community Police Beat is ranked from 1 through to 57 with 1 indicating the most stressed beat in the city. Beat 34X is the highest ranked beat in 2011.
2011 Top 5 Beats
1 34X
2 30X
3 29X
4 35X
5 06X2010 Oakland Homicide Report
It's almost the end of 2011 and perhaps a strange time to release a report on an issue so immediate and dire as homicides in our city for the past year, but due to data flow and multiple priorities for our team we're only just getting to our update of this valuable report. This report presents the available data on homicides occurring in Oakland in 2010 and is made possible through the detailed data maintained by OPD's Homicide Branch. Urban Strategies Council has been producing these reports for several years and we'll be updating this new site with our historical reports very soon too. A few key highlights are included in this article, download the PDF for the entire report.
City Wide: Homicides Declined on a Yearly Basis from 2006 to 2010, Yet Remained High
In Oakland in 2010, 90 people lost their lives to violence, while in the 5 year period between 2006 and 2010, our community lost 594 people. Despite these staggering statistics, the numbers killed have been declining on a yearly basis during this period.
Count of Homicides Per Year
National Institute of Justice Innovation in Crime Mapping Award
Large PDF Version (Right Click and download only, 22MB file will hang many browsers)
East Oakland has faced multiple crisis over the past decades from heavy disinvestment in the mid century to spiraling crime and unemployment and failing public school systems in the 80's through to today. On top of this long term stress for this part of our city, the predatory lending of the early 2000's has resulted in massive foreclosures across an area with historically stable home ownership.
The Oakland Community Land Trust was formed to stabilize these communities and our model has combined very detailed neighborhood level data on crime, assets, foreclosure and housing condition to ensure our work is data-driven and proactive.
This map illustrates the growing burden of the foreclosure crisis on this part of Oakland over time and the changes in stability in serious crime in this neighborhood that makes any form of neighborhood stabilization that much harder.
Oakland Crime Hot Spot Maps for the 3rd Quarter of 2011
These crime report hot spot maps were developed for the Oakland Police Department to aid with intelligence-led policing efforts, to provide resource management support and to aid in targeting crime suppression tactics. These hot spot maps depict crime reports of: Violent Crime, Property Crime and Burglary and are arranged by Command Areas for the 3rd Quarter of 2011. A hot spot is an area with a higher intensity of crime than the surrounding area and is useful as a visual guide to identify areas of high crime incidence.
Click on this first map to help you determine which command area a given part of the city is in.
Bureau of Field Operations 1
Violence
Download High Resolution PDF
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