Violence Reduction - Shotspotter Alerts - Historical
Attribution: City of Chicago · source
NOTE: The City of Chicago ended its use of ShotSpotter on 9/22/2024. This dataset is historical-only and ends with that date. This dataset contains all ShotSpotter alerts since the introduction of ShotSpotter to some Chicago Police Department (CPD) districts in 2017. ShotSpotter is a gunshot detection system designed to automatically determine the location of potential outdoor gunfire. ShotSpotter audio sensors are placed in several CPD districts throughout the city (specific districts are noted below). If at least three sensors detect a sound that the ShotSpotter software determines to be potential gunfire, a location is determined and the alert is sent to human ShotSpotter analysts for review. Either the alert is sent to CPD, or it is dismissed. Each alert can contain multiple rounds of gunfire; sometimes there are multiple alerts for what may be determined to be one incident. More detail on the technology and its accuracy can be found on the company’s website <a href="https://www.shotspotter.com">here</a>. It should also be noted that ShotSpotter alerts may increase year-over-year while gun violence did not necessarily increase accordingly because of improvements in detection sensors. ShotSpotter does not exist in every CPD district, and it was not rolled out in every district at the same time. ShotSpotter was first deployed in Chicago in 2017, and sensors exist in the following districts as of the May 2021 launch of this dataset: 002, 003, 004, 005, 006, 007, 008, 009, 010, 011, 015, and 025.
Dataset Profile
Popularity
Freshness & Tracking
No files attached
Upload a file to get started
Owner & Attribution
Metadata
Schema (27 columns)
Column metadata from the source provider's own profiling
| Column | Type | Cardinality | Nulls | Top Values | Range |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
DATE Date when the alert was generated. | calendar_date | 219.4K | 0 | 2021-12-31T23:58:28.2022-01-01T00:19:12.2023-01-01T01:47:14. | 2017-01-13T0 … 2024-09-22T2 |
BLOCK The block of the address where ShotSpotter detected potential gunfire. | text | 30.1K | 412 | 6400 S DOCTOR MARTI2400 E 105TH ST300 NORTH CENTRAL P | 00 … WE00 PULLMA |
ZIP_CODE The zip code where the potential gunfire was detected. | text | 33 | 504 | 606176062860623 | 60608 … 60827 |
WARD The City Council district in which the potential gunfire was detected. Please refer to the city of Chicago’s Data Portal for a map of the 50 wards. | number | 35 | 516 | 1679 | 3 … 45 |
COMMUNITY_AREA The community area where the potential gunfire was detected. Chicago has 77 community areas. See the map of Chicago’s community areas at https://data.cityofchicago.org/d/cauq-8yn6. | text | 62 | 504 | AUSTINWEST ENGLEWOODSOUTH SHORE | ALBANY PARK … WOODLAWN |
AREA The CPD area where the potential gunfire was detected. There are 5 CPD areas. Each area includes 3-4 police districts. | number | 5 | 494 | 124 | 1 … 5 |
DISTRICT The CPD district where the potential gunfire was detected. Please refer to the City of Chicago’s Data Portal for a map of districts. | number | 18 | 494 | 478 | 1 … 25 |
BEAT The CPD beat where the potential gunfire was detected. A beat is the smallest CPD geographic area. Each beat has a dedicated police beat car. Three to five beats make up a police sector, and three sectors make up a police district. The Chicago Police Department has 22 police districts. Please refer to the City of Chicago’s Data Portal for a map of beats. | text | 186 | 494 | 042304210523 | 0131 … 2535 |
STREET_OUTREACH_ORGANIZATION Street outreach organization refers to organizations that actively work in “the streets” to engage individuals who are at immediate or high risk of being either victims or perpetrators of violence. Each organization has specific geographic boundaries where they focus their activities. This indicates which organization(s) is (are) active in the location where the ShotSpotter alert occurred and may contain more than one organization as several outreach organizations’ boundaries overlap. | text | 98 | 0 | NoneClaretian AssociatesPBMR New City | Acclivus Dou … UCAN Roselan |
UNIQUE_ID The unique identifier generated by shotspotter for each alert. | text | 222.1K | 0 | SST-253997SST-272745SST-202130 | SST-1000 … SST-99999 |
MONTH The month when the alert was generated. | number | 12 | 0 | 165 | 1 … 12 |
DAY_OF_WEEK The day of the week when the alert was generated. Sunday=1 | number | 7 | 0 | 172 | 1 … 7 |
HOUR The hour of the day when the alert was generated. | number | 24 | 0 | 0123 | 0 … 23 |
INCIDENT_TYPE_DESCRIPTION ShotSpotter code describing the type of alert. Alert types are “Single Gunshot,” “Multiple Gunshot,” and “Gunshot or Firecracker.” | text | 3 | 2 | MULTIPLE GUNSHOTSSINGLE GUNSHOTGUNSHOT OR FIRECRACK | GUNSHOT OR F … SINGLE GUNSH |
ROUNDS Each ShotSpotter alert can contain multiple rounds if they are fired in quick succession. This column shows the number of rounds in the alert. | number | 57 | 0 | 123 | 1 … 201 |
ILLINOIS_HOUSE_DISTRICT The Illinois State House of Representatives district in which the alert occurred. | number | 29 | 23 | 61032 | 1 … 78 |
ILLINOIS_SENATE_DISTRICT The Illinois State Senate district in which the alert occurred. | number | 17 | 23 | 3516 | 1 … 39 |
LATITUDE The latitude of the potential gunfire detection. In order to preserve anonymity, the given coordinates are not the actual location of the crime. To produce slightly altered coordinates, a circle roughly the size of an average city block was drawn around the original point location, and a new location was picked randomly from a spot around the circumference of that circle. | number | 160.4K | 0 | 41.77799120441.75060895441.754399296 | 41.6468057 … 41.980771096 |
LONGITUDE The longitude of the potential gunfire detection. This has been slightly altered to preserve anonymity (see details under LATITUDE). | number | 123.5K | 0 | -87.710547954-87.722922854-87.616937759 | -87.81688895 … -87.52312425 |
LOCATION A slightly altered location of the alert in a form that allows for mapping and other geographic analysis on this data portal. | point | 222.1K | 0 | [object Object][object Object][object Object] | — |
Zip Codes This column was automatically created in order to record in what polygon from the dataset 'Zip Codes' (6mkv-f3dw) the point in column 'location' is located. This enables the creation of region maps (choropleths) in the visualization canvas and data lens. | number | — | — | — | — |
Census Tracts This column was automatically created in order to record in what polygon from the dataset 'Census Tracts' (bdys-3d7i) the point in column 'location' is located. This enables the creation of region maps (choropleths) in the visualization canvas and data lens. | number | — | — | — | — |
Wards This column was automatically created in order to record in what polygon from the dataset 'Wards' (43wa-7qmu) the point in column 'location' is located. This enables the creation of region maps (choropleths) in the visualization canvas and data lens. | number | — | — | — | — |
Police Districts | number | — | — | — | — |
Police Beats | number | — | — | — | — |
Boundaries - ZIP Codes This column was automatically created in order to record in what polygon from the dataset 'Boundaries - ZIP Codes' (rpca-8um6) the point in column 'location' is located. This enables the creation of region maps (choropleths) in the visualization canvas and data lens. | number | — | — | — | — |
Community Areas This column was automatically created in order to record in what polygon from the dataset 'Community Areas' (vrxf-vc4k) the point in column 'location' is located. This enables the creation of region maps (choropleths) in the visualization canvas and data lens. | number | — | — | — | — |
Resources
Direct links to downloads, APIs, and related pages.