Crime and CAD Call Records for Pittsburgh and Rochester, 1990-2001
by Jacqueline Cohen / Carnegie Mellon University
Available on 1 platform
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Description
Over 2.1 million records of crime offense reports and computer-aided dispatch calls for drugs and shots fired were collected from police departments in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (1990-2001) and Rochester, New York (1991-2001). The data was address-matched and geocoded by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, with match rates ranging from 72% to 100%. Records include geographic identifiers like precinct, car beat, and Census tract for crimes such as assault, burglary, robbery, and larceny.
Use Cases
Forecasting crime hotspots based on historical offense and CAD call data mentioned in the description.
Analyzing spatial crime patterns across police precincts and Census tracts using the geocoded identifiers.
Evaluating the relationship between different crime types, such as aggravated assault and robbery, over a decade.
Modeling temporal trends in drug-related and shots-fired incidents from CAD call records.
Strengths
Contains 2,182,721 total records (1,643,828 from Pittsburgh and 538,893 from Rochester).
High address match rates reported, up to 96% for Rochester crime data and 100% for some Pittsburgh CAD data.
Covers a long temporal range (up to 12 years) for two distinct U.S. cities.
Includes multiple geographic area identifiers (precinct, car beat, Census tract) for spatial analysis.
Limitations
Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.
Address match rates vary significantly across years and data types, potentially affecting spatial analysis for some subsets.
Provenance
Source
Pittsburgh Bureau of Police and Rochester Police Department.
Collection Method
Collection of official crime offense reports and computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system calls, followed by address matching and geocoding using ArcView and GDT Dynamap.
Time Range
1990-2001 for Pittsburgh; 1991-2001 for Rochester.
Geography
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Rochester, New York, USA.
License is listed as Open Access (green), but specific terms should be verified.