Redrawn Baltimore Police districts would drastically increase the Western and Eastern districts’ share of the most serious crimes committed in Baltimore while decreasing the Northeastern District’s share. This repository includes the crime data and the code used in the analysis that led to our story: Proposed Baltimore police districts would lump more violent crime into the most violent districts, analysis shows. But larger, more violent districts could actually be beneficial for Baltimore if police equitably realign resources, experts say. The Baltimore Police Department's goal was to equally share workload among the city’s nine districts, a term it defines as the number of 911 calls times the number of hours officers spend responding. But this equality would create other inequalities:
- The Western, Eastern and Southwestern neighborhoods will comprise almost half of all city homicides and shootings and the share of the Western and Southwestern neighborhoods will increase.
- If crime trends return to pre-pandemic levels, the Western District will have the highest share of shootings, homicides, aggravated assaults and 911 calls. Redistricting would have increased all four.
- New land and the residents who live there added to the historically violent Eastern and Western districts will lower the per capita rates of homicides and shootings despite more of each occurring in those districts.
- The proposed Northeastern District would have the lowest share of all shootings and homicides if pandemic trends continue with just 7% of each , a drastic drop from 10% each. Only two other districts would see drops in both categories; their shares are much higher and remained within a percentage point of current levels.
- If pandemic trends are more indicative of the future, the proposed Southwestern district would have by far the most homicides. Nearly one of every five homicides have taken place within the proposed district boundaries since the beginning of 2020.
district | current total | proposed total | current agg assault | proposed agg assault | current homicide | proposed homicide | current shooting | proposed shooting |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
western | 7.95 | 10.68 | 11.40 | 13.83 | 16.82 | 17.63 | 16.93 | 18.25 |
southwestern | 10.36 | 9.90 | 12.36 | 12.51 | 14.02 | 16.07 | 14.04 | 15.89 |
eastern | 8.77 | 10.14 | 11.37 | 12.09 | 14.70 | 14.77 | 14.74 | 13.84 |
northwestern | 9.88 | 10.07 | 9.75 | 9.20 | 12.83 | 12.09 | 11.02 | 10.36 |
northern | 11.16 | 10.63 | 8.17 | 9.09 | 6.85 | 9.53 | 6.85 | 9.01 |
southeastern | 14.23 | 12.92 | 10.98 | 10.22 | 6.85 | 7.91 | 6.60 | 7.86 |
southern | 11.23 | 11.02 | 12.08 | 11.22 | 9.66 | 7.79 | 11.30 | 9.56 |
northeastern | 14.80 | 11.45 | 13.46 | 9.45 | 12.34 | 7.73 | 11.40 | 7.55 |
central | 11.62 | 13.19 | 10.43 | 12.39 | 5.92 | 6.48 | 7.13 | 7.68 |
district | current total | proposed total | current agg assault | proposed agg assault | current homicide | proposed homicide | current shooting | proposed shooting |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
southwestern | 11.23 | 10.25 | 12.51 | 11.77 | 15.55 | 19.08 | 13.91 | 15.47 |
western | 8.11 | 10.90 | 10.41 | 13.19 | 14.61 | 14.61 | 13.65 | 15.79 |
eastern | 8.82 | 10.08 | 10.55 | 11.56 | 13.66 | 14.02 | 15.33 | 13.14 |
northwestern | 10.50 | 10.85 | 10.26 | 10.41 | 13.07 | 12.25 | 10.48 | 9.84 |
southern | 11.85 | 11.74 | 10.98 | 10.71 | 13.90 | 10.72 | 12.35 | 11.52 |
southeastern | 13.44 | 12.36 | 10.05 | 10.16 | 7.77 | 7.77 | 8.15 | 9.45 |
northern | 10.38 | 10.33 | 8.76 | 9.27 | 5.18 | 7.66 | 6.27 | 8.35 |
central | 11.88 | 13.01 | 11.56 | 12.24 | 5.89 | 7.30 | 9.83 | 9.39 |
northeastern | 13.79 | 10.47 | 14.93 | 10.69 | 10.37 | 6.60 | 10.03 | 7.06 |
district | current_2020_to_current_raw | current pandemic share | proposed_2020_to_current_raw | proposed pandemic share | current_2015_to_2020_raw | current 2015 to 2020 share | proposed_2015_to_2020_raw | proposed 2015 to 2020 share |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
central | 297419 | 9.58 | 365429 | 11.77 | 262037 | 10.84 | 300309 | 12.42 |
eastern | 341762.00 | 11.01 | 325825.00 | 10.49 | 256870.00 | 10.63 | 261670.00 | 10.82 |
northeastern | 331983 | 10.69 | 242664 | 7.81 | 308085 | 12.74 | 215057 | 8.90 |
northern | 333309 | 10.73 | 366725 | 11.81 | 257046 | 10.63 | 267274 | 11.06 |
northwestern | 413137 | 13.30 | 388408 | 12.51 | 225674 | 9.34 | 233717 | 9.67 |
southeastern | 337068 | 10.85 | 321590 | 10.36 | 269178 | 11.13 | 247873 | 10.25 |
southern | 380547 | 12.25 | 350034 | 11.27 | 261374 | 10.81 | 250244 | 10.35 |
southwestern | 317145 | 10.21 | 348457 | 11.22 | 291332 | 12.05 | 294302 | 12.17 |
western | 352991 | 11.37 | 396045 | 12.75 | 285900 | 11.83 | 346869 | 14.35 |
Baltimore Police have redrawn the districts using 2020 Decennial Census, workload service data, Part 1 crimes and property crimes data from 2016 to 2021. It defined workload as the number officers who responded to each call times the number of calls.
The Baltimore Banner analyzed the data in light of the pandemic, comparing how the proposed map would impact pre-pandemic rates and those since January 2020. The Banner used Part 1 crime data and 911 call data downloaded from Open Baltimore and combined it with 2020 Decennial Census Data. We are unable to reproduce the workload analysis because we do not have access to data on the number of officers who responded to a call.
We consider pre-pandemic and pandemic crime trends because it is impossible to know which will be more predictive of future crime. Experts do not agree if the pandemic has altered crime trends permanently. Others believe pandemic changes in crime are unlikely to hold, making pre-pandemic trends more representative of future crimes.
The Banner was able to make its own shape files and crosswalks for the proposed districts because they include whole neighborhoods, an existing dataset made available on Open Baltimore and included in Part 1 crime data.
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