Baltimore launches public safety dashboard

A dashboard to track crime, arrests, convictions and other public safety metrics was unveiled last week by Mayor Brandon Scott’s administration.

The Public Safety Accountability Dashboard, which Scott hails as a step toward transparency and accessibility, will offer the public a view of police and court data broken down by neighborhood, police district and crime types. It also will offer metrics around neighborhood demographics and the city’s community violence intervention sites, including Safe Streets locations and hospital-based sites.

“For the first time ever, folks who live, work and play in Baltimore have a clear view into what’s happening in our city, can follow along with our work to affect change for the better and partner with us as we carry out the Mayor’s Comprehensive Violence Prevention Plan,” Shantay Jackson, the director of the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement, said in a news release Tuesday.

The city’s Comprehensive Violence Prevention Plan, released in 2021, called for a dashboard with metrics to “help keep agencies accountable” for executing strategies.

The “first iteration” of the dashboard was reviewed by virtual focus groups before it was released to the public, which officials said was important because it incorporated community members into the process.

The news release said future iterations of the tool will include additional public safety data, such as warrant information from the Sheriff ’s Office, gun seizures and intimate partner violence data, along with filters for City Council and state legislative districts.

Crime data, from the Baltimore Police Department, dates back to 2012 and includes Part 1 crime numbers including violent crimes like homicide, nonfatal shootings, rape, assaults and robberies. Those can be viewed on a map or chart.

The data also links to arrest figures by criminal charge and offers a view of case dispositions, compiled through Maryland Courts data.