This site was begun to track how the COVID-19 pandemic influenced crime in U.S. cities. But now, you can analyze, visualize, and access recent criminal justice data from 27 major cities. If you would like to directly access crime statistics, please visit our statistics page. Aggregate homicide data can be found on our homicides page. For help on how to use this website, please visit our how-to page.
Click the dropdown menus below to choose which data to plot for all cities where it is available. Choose one category to display 2020 data relative to that from the previous 5 years. Choose multiple categories to compare how different types of crime were affected by the pandemic. Drag a box over the graph to zoom in, and double click to zoom back out.
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The displayed data is collected from open data sources and data requests sent to specific cities. Data has been cleaned but may still contain errors. Certain reports have been dropped that are not related to the crime categories presented above. Data has also been restricted for categorical consistency across years. When necessary, crime incidents and arrests have been classified manually on that basis of “crime description”, “weapon”, “victim”, and “premises” fields. Finally, many cities release data that is subsequently audited and updated. This means that very recent data may not be accurate. Below are data definitions.
Types of Measurements
Incidents
Reflects crimes reported to the relevant Police department and are categorized based upon the classifications ascribed by police at the time of reporting. Depending on the city, this will include both Part I and Part II Uniform Crime Report offenses. Certain offense types will often be excluded from the data such as crimes of a sexual nature or those involving juveniles.
Arrests
Arrest reports in the relevant city. There are plotted based upon the date of the arrest where available, and otherwise plotted based upon the date of the crime for which the arrest was made.
Pedestrian Stops
Brief detainment of an individual on the basis of reasonable suspicion of involvement in criminal activity.
Vehicle Stops
The temporary detention of a driver of a vehicle to investigate either a possible crime or a minor legal violation.
Count
An unadjusted count of the data.
Per Capita
The count per 100,000 residents of the city.
7 Day MA
A smoothed version of the data taking a 7 day simple moving average to make it easier to see the trend in the data
Crime
Contraband
Indicates stops where contraband was found on the person (or in the vehicle). This includes both drugs and weapons.
Frisk
Indicates stops where the officer frisked the individual. This is generally done to detect weapons.
Search
Indicates stops where the officer searched the individual (or vehicle). This is more involved than a frisk.
Homicide
Murders and manslaughters.
Property
Burglaries, all thefts, and arson.
Violent
Murder, manslaughter, aggravated assault, rape (not statutory) and robbery (with and without a firearm).
Motor Vehicle Theft
Unauthorized use of a vehicle including car, bus, or truck.
Rape
Any acts involving sexual penetration, where possible statutory rape has been excluded.
Theft from Auto
Theft of goods from a vehicle.
Residential Burglary
Burglary of houses and apartments.
Non-Residential Burglary
Burglary of commercial premises, including stores, movie theatres and banks.
Theft
Theft of personal property that does not include robberies, burglary, or theft of motor vehicles.
Domestic Violence
Includes any violence, abuse, or threats against a relationship partner, child, or dependent adult.
Mobility
County Cases
The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 within the respective county.
County Deaths
The number of deaths official attributed to COVID-19 within the respective county.
Retail/Recreation
Mobility trends for places restaurants, cafes, shopping centers, theme parks, museums, libraries, movie theatres, and other similar locations. Measured in total visitors.
Grocery/Pharmacy
Mobility trends for grocery markets, food warehouses, farmers markets, specialty food shops, drug stores, pharmacies, and other similar locations. Measured in total visitors.
Parks
Mobility trends for local parks, national parks, public beaches, marinas, dog parks, plazas, public gardens, and other similar locations. Measured in total visitors.
Transit
Mobility trends for public transport hubs such as subway, bus, and train stations. Measured in total visitors.
Workplaces
Mobility trends for places of work. Measured in total visitors.
Residential
Mobility trends for places of residence. Measured in terms of duration in the location.
Data Sources and Notes
Mobility
Data comes from Google Community Mobility Reports. This data is collected at the county level. Data is recorded as a percentage change relative to a baseline, which is the median value for a given day of the week during the period from January 3rd to February 6th. These changes are separated by the category of the location.
Some cities, such as Houston, changed the crime categories reported, so there may exist some gaps in the data to maintain consistency. The most recent statistics may not be reliable because it takes time to update the data.
Data on this site comes from research led by David Abrams, with assistance from Priyanka Goonetilleke, Elizabeth Holmdahl and Bridget Brody. Please cite this URL when using figures or data. Site designed and built by Kathy Qian and David Feng.
