CRIME IS DOWN: But Not Around Here

We were inspired by a recent online posting that detailed the increase in Wrigleyville and Boystown robbery cases over the past 13 years.

Our lone Excel whiz cracked open his spreadsheets and did a bunch of filter stuff with $ signs, semi-colons and all that jazz. When he was done, we checked his work. His findings are pretty incredible.

According to City of Chicago data, the city saw reported robberies drop 27% between 2001 and 2012. During the same time, reported robberies increased 54% in Wrigleyville and Boystown, from 136 incidents to 210.

Citywide incidents dropped a bit more than 19% between 2008 and 2012. Wrigleyville and Boystown robberies increased nearly 33% during the same time period, from 158 cases to 210.

Here are our whiz’s not so pretty pictures and, for the detail oriented, his raw data and methodology.

While reported robberies fell 27% citywide (above)…
…robberies increased 54% around here (below).

We also analyzed robbery reports within the Chicago Police Department official police “beats.” It is equally unflattering.

Raw Data
The raw data used to compile this report is available on our Google Docs page.

Methodology
Historic crime data provided by the City of Chicago for the current 19th police district as well as the former 19th and 23rd police districts were collected. The old 19th and 23rd police districts were combined on March 4, 2012, to form the current 19th district.

We extracted all robberies from the above data.

We filtered the robbery data, reducing it to incidents that occurred in the Wrigleyville and Boystown areas, as defined by the red dotted lines in the map below.

For the purposes of this research, the boundaries of Wrigleyville and Boystown are defined by the red dotted lines.

IMAGE: City of Chicago (modified)


About CWBChicago 4358 Articles
CWBChicago was created in 2013 by five residents of Wrigleyville and Boystown who had grown disheartened with inaccurate information that was being provided at local Community Policing (CAPS) meetings. Our coverage area has expanded since then to cover Lincoln Park, River North, The Loop, Uptown, and other North Side Areas. But our mission remains unchanged: To provide original public safety reporting with better context and greater detail than mainstream media outlets.