Crime is near and dear to my heart. Living in Frankford, how could it be otherwise. Thanks to the PPD crime stats web site you can actually get some good information on what is going on but it has its limits. Frankford is a unique area that is included in the 15th District but spans several patrol sectors. So it is hard to get a report that only includes Frankford and cuts out Juniata and Bridesburg and Mayfair.
For our purposes, we use the boundaries set in the u of penn cartographic lab neighborhood base. Since neighborhoods are not legally established entities, this is the best we can do. Follow this link to see what we call Frankford. I don’t entirely agree with it but it is what it is.
What I do every 2 weeks is download everything in the area and then cut out those incidents not in Frankford and then count the numbers of crimes in the major categories. Major to me is Rape, Homicide, Robbery, Aggravated Assault, Burglary and Theft. I map all except theft. I do not include domestic assaults or domestic rapes since they are not a threat to the public.
I do the same calculation for the exact same time period in 2008 and compare the two time spans. Overall, total crime in Frankford in those six categories between April 13th and August 16th is down 24%. This is a link to a summary of the data.
I noticed the trend a few months ago but I wanted to follow it for a while to see if the numbers continued along the same trend. This is good news for Frankford and the city. It shows that something can be done when a new strategy comes along.
You may say you don’t see any difference. The difference I see is more police, more sirens, more car stops. That is preventing crime. That is good.
It hasn’t stopped the morons who walk up the block and drop trash on the sidewalk. It hasn’t stopped idiots with loud car radios. It has made it a bit better living in Frankford.
I’m curious about your thoughts on map you use. Which boundaries do you disagree with? I tend to agree with most you have there for the sake of coverage, though I go back and forth as to whether the north boundary is Bridge or Cheltenham. What are your thoughts on the map?
Great post, by the way. I really enjoy the crime map updates you do.
From the map, the northern boundary is Cheltenham not Bridge. If it’s Bridge it will reduce the size of Frankford that would be nice.
I can’t say I disagree with any of the boundaries and I use the Neighborhoodbase (http://cml.upenn.edu/nbase/nbProfileMap.asp) boundaries because it was created by some disinterested parties. But there are areas that would be subject to debate by some folks.
I grew up in Bridesburg at a time when we thought the Burg ended at the Frankford creek and Frankford was on the other side. Other folks thought it was the railroad tracks and there is a Bridesburg railroad stop on Bridge Street in what we now consider Frankford. Frankford Junction stop on the railroad is not in what we now think of as Frankford. So clearly the boundaries have moved around over time.
I have no problem including Cheltenham Avenue in Frankford. There are a lot of historical references to it in Frankford history when it was referred to as Dark Run lane.
I’m working on some crime updates now and one thing that interests me is that there are large areas of Frankford that are virtually crime free. I can overlay all the crime maps for a period of time, one on top of the other and then you can really see the pattern. We’ll try to find a way to present that information.
Thanks for the comments, it’s good to know someone is reading out there.
I’m interested to see the areas you say have almost no criminal activity. I’ve always suspected that. Curious to see where exactly they are – and how big they are.