Why look at crime incidents using the portal?
There is a data portal for crime in Phoenix! So what. SO WHAT!? Well, if you are interested in understanding current trends in public safety, then you should keep reading!
Crime trends are very difficult to assess, without seeing the data, because of the peculiar nature of crime.
First, crime is very concentrated in specific geographic areas and exposure to crime and victimization is disproportionately concentrated among groups. If you are fortunate enough to not experience victimization, then your assessment of the frequency of events probably comes from hearsay or media accounts. These are both “biased” accounts in the sense that they do not reflect representative cases of crime. In other words, we tend to hear about things that happen and don’t really hear about when things don’t happen.
Second, when individuals do experience victimization, they tend to overestimate the prevalence of crime. This makes intuitive sense, but makes it difficult to assess the actual prevalence of crime.
Third, we measure crime very poorly. There is often a large time gap between when crime happens and when those data are compiled into annual reports of crime.
But, if you want to know about crime in Phoenix, there is the open data portal! (That is the answer to your ‘so what?’ inquiry above.) Specifically, there are three files that pertain to the “police” topic:
For both the Calls for Service and the Crime Incidents data, the city updates the files at 11am every day. The files contains data beginning November 2015 up to 7 days before the posting date.
So, given the issues with the way government collects information on crime and the way it is reported, it is probably pretty great that we can access the data and take up the task of reporting trends in crime, right?
Let’s see it in action! Check out:
OR, head back to R 2 Phoenix page
Please report any needed corrections to the Issues page. Thanks!
Last updated 14 February, 2024