Chicago crime map

Where Chicago’s reports come from

Every report on CrimePing’s Chicago map is published by the Chicago Police Department through the City of Chicago’s open-data program. CrimePing doesn’t add or edit reports. Your phone asks the city’s data directly for reports around the point you’re looking at.

Chicago adds reports every day, but each one reaches the public data about seven days after the incident. In practice, the past 24 hours and most of the past week will look empty. That gap is the delay in the data, not a quiet week, so the 30-day and 90-day ranges give a fuller picture.

Chicago publishes addresses at the block level, with the last digits of the house number hidden. You’ll see the hundred block of a street rather than a house number, and the pin falls on that block.

A Chicago report in CrimePing shows the primary type and a more specific description, the kind of place it happened (a street, an apartment or a store, for example), whether an arrest was recorded, whether it was marked domestic, and the police district and ward.

What kinds of reports appear

Chicago’s primary types include theft, battery, criminal damage, assault, deceptive practice, motor vehicle theft, narcotics, burglary, robbery and weapons violations. CrimePing keeps the department’s label and sorts each report into one of six colored categories:

• Violent: battery, assault, robbery and weapons violations.
• Property: theft, burglary and criminal damage.
• Vehicle: motor vehicle theft.
• Fraud: deceptive practice, which covers fraud and similar offenses.
• Drugs: narcotics.
• Other: everything else, including Chicago’s own “other offense” type.

Color shows the type of report, not how serious an incident was.

How to check crime near a Chicago address

1. Start the app

   Tap Use my location on the welcome screen, or pick Chicago to start in the Loop.

2. Find the block

   Drag the map until the address is centered, then tap Search this area. CrimePing searches around a point on the map, not a typed address.

3. Pick a radius

   Chicago’s street grid runs about eight blocks to the mile, so a quarter mile reaches roughly two blocks in each direction. Half a mile, 1, 2 and 5 miles are in Settings.

4. Pick a time range

   Because of the seven-day delay, start with 30D or 90D. The 1Y tab shows a full year of reports.

5. Open a report

   Tap a dot for the full report, including the block, the type of place and whether an arrest was recorded. Recent lists the same reports, and Trends compares this period with the one before.

6. Watch a place

   In Alerts, save Home, Work, School, Family or Gym with a radius of up to 2 miles. Alerts follow the same delay, so they tell you about reports as Chicago publishes them, not as they happen.

Neighborhoods across the city

Search anywhere the Chicago Police Department covers, from the Loop and Lincoln Park to Hyde Park, Logan Square and Wicker Park. Each report includes its police district and ward, which helps when you compare what you see with updates from your ward office or district.

Suburbs such as Evanston, Oak Park and Cicero have their own police departments, so their reports aren’t in Chicago’s data.

Why Chicago reports say “Latest”

CrimePing puts the newest report in your circle in a card at the bottom of the map. It’s labeled “Breaking” only when the report is under two hours old. Because Chicago’s data runs about a week behind, you’ll almost always see “Latest” instead, with the report’s age. That’s expected.

Read the map with care

• Reports are preliminary. The department can reclassify or correct a report after it’s published. CrimePing shows the current version each time it loads.
• Arrest and domestic flags can change. They show what the record said at the city’s latest update.
• Blocks, not houses. A pin marks a block. Don’t assume a report involves a particular building on it.
• A report isn’t a finding of guilt. It records what was reported to police, not what a court decided.
• It isn’t for emergencies. CrimePing can’t contact police. In an emergency, call 911.

Chicago crime map: common questions

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• New York City crime map
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