Crimes

About crimes

In this section of EveryBlock, you can find reports of homicides and other serious crimes near you that have been reported recently to the Philadelphia Police Department.

The police also provide reports of theft, vehicle theft, burglary, aggravated assault, robbery and rape. Each report includes information about the date and time police were dispatched, the location of the incident, details about its location — private residence, department store, highway, etc. — the police sector where the alleged crime occurred and a district control number unique to each report.

Finally, the police provide more detailed information under what we call each report's "secondary type." This will tell you if a reported theft occurred in a vehicle, if a reported homicide involved a handgun or if a burglary occurred during the day in a private residence, among other things.

Keep in mind that the police only provide information on "serious crimes," so we at EveryBlock can't provide information about all crimes. The department has said that it intends to provide information about more types of crime in the future.

Also note that the police only publish reports that can be mapped, meaning reports with incorrect addresses might not appear. But the department estimates that only 2 percent to 4 percent of its reports fall into that category.

Source

The data comes from Philadelphia Police Crime Maps, the public crime mapping system of the Philadelphia Police Department. The mapping system is updated as reports come in, and we at EveryBlock publish new reports each day.

Can crime information change?

The information published on EveryBlock comes from initial police crime reports provided by the police. Reports can be reclassified after further investigation, and the data doesn't represent official statistics submitted to the FBI under the Uniform Crime Reporting program.