Monitoring Crime Analytics

Office of Data Analytics and Business Intelligence (DBI) | April 7, 2022

Crime Analytics Dashboard

The Office of Data Analytics and Business Intelligence (DBI) at the City of Dallas, in collaboration with the Dallas Police Department (DPD), has launched a new dashboard that provides detailed data related to crime and DPD response times in the City of Dallas. This is an effort to foster transparency and to empower the public and city leaders by providing a tool to explore crime in-depth across the entire City of Dallas.
The dashboard consists of four pages: the Crime Overview page, the Victim Demographics page, the Crime by Day/Time page, and the Response Times page. Each page features a map, several metrics, and various ways to slice/filter the data. The dashboard contains data beginning January 1, 2020 and is updated daily with new data. Each page is interactive - meaning you can click on a component in a visualization/chart and it will filter other visualizations/charts on the page.
Below is a guide to the dashboard components and interactions. The dashboard can be accessed here.

Dashboard Pages

The first page of the dashboard, the Crime Overview page, is the primary page and contains data for all crimes in the dashboard. We also present data for Violent Crimes, Family Violence Crimes, and Hate Crimes. You can navigate through the four dashboard pages via the Select Page menu.

The second page, the Victim Demographics page displays aggregated data that gives insight about the victims of Crimes Against Person by race, ethnicity, sex, age, and hate crime anti-bias. 
The third page, the Crime by Day/Time page explores the "when" of crime by showing the distribution of crimes by month, day, hour, and Police watch. 
The fourth page, the Response Times page presents data related to DPD response times and dispatched calls for service. By default we show data for Priority 1 calls but you can use the Select Priority parameter above the map to view data for Priority 2, 3, and 4 calls. This page only shows data at the city wide level and by Police Division. 

Tooltips

A tooltip is a window that appears when hovering over a visualization. Most visualizations have a tooltip that provides additional data and details. 

Crime Type Filter

The Crime Type Filter allows you to filter the entire page by Violent Crimes, Family Violence Crimes, or Hate Crimes. The only exception is the Murders per Capita card which is not filterable. The BAN (Big Authoritative Number) cards at the top of the page have tooltips which contain definitions and summary data for these crime types. 

Map Interactions

The Select Map Type parameter allows you to view where a crime occurred via a heat map or an area map. With the Select Geography parameter you can view different area types on the area map and on the bubble/bar chart below the map. Available area types are Council District, Police Division, Police Sector, Police Beat, Police Reporting Area, and ZIP Code.  You can type in a specific area (e.g., Southwest Police Division) in the Search For Area box to search for that specific area within the bubble/bar chart.  The Click Here To Find Geography button on the map allows you to find the specific areas associated with addresses where crimes have occurred since 2020. 

Crime Classification Hierarchy

An offense is classified into three levels: crime, crime category, and crime against. Each crime is classified under a crime category and each crime category is classified under a crime against. E.g., The crime Simple Assault is in the Assault Offenses crime category, and the crimes in the Assault Offenses crime category are crimes against person. You can use the Select Crime Category filter to only show data for that category. The tooltip provides definitions for each crime and crime against designation. 

Select Metric

The Select Metric parameter allows you to view the data by (1) count, (2) the count change year-over-year, and (3) the percent change year-over-year. When the Select Year parameter is set to the current year, the metric calculations are made on a year-to-date basis. If a previous year is selected in the Select Year parameter, the calculations are for the entire year. 
An example of year-to-date count change year-over-year: if today is April 4, 2022 - we count the total number of crimes year-to-date (January 1, 2022 through April 3, 2022) and compare that total count to the total count in the same period last year (Jan 1, 2021 through April 3, 2021).

View Summary of Dashboard Data

The View Summary button will show you an overview of city wide crime data. 

Toggle Between Light and Dark Mode

Reset the Dashboard to Default View

We are grateful for DPD's partnership in the publication of this dashboard and we hope that you find it a useful resource for monitoring crime trends in the city of Dallas.