SFPD Incident Report: 2018 to Present

Revised: 03/2023

The San Francisco Police Department’s (SFPD) Incident Report Datatset is one of the most used datasets on DataSF. The dataset compiles data from the department’s Crime Data Warehouse (CDW) to provide information on incident reports filed by the SFPD in CDW, or filed by the public with the SFPD.

How can this Dataset be best used?

The incident report dataset is good at providing counts of incident reports, by type, date, time and location. This information can be used to help understand the number, location, and nature, of incidents of crime that are reported to or reported by the SFPD. Geographic information is anonymized and provided to help understand incident reports across neighborhoods, police districts and supervisorial districts. Provision of date information allows for analysis of data trends over time.

Are incident reports the ‘official’ count of crime?

No. While incident reports may serve as the basis for official crime statistics, official crime statistics are governed by the FBI’s UCR and NIBRS program. The most recent official UCR/NIBRS statistical release from the SFPD can be found via the California Department of Justice’s Open Justice portal.

What are incident reports?

This dataset includes incident reports that have been filed as of January 1, 2018. These reports are filed by officers or self-reported by members of the public using SFPD’s online reporting system. The reports are categorized into the following types based on how the report was received and the type of incident:

1. Initial Reports: the first report filed for an incident

2. Supplemental Reports: a follow up report to an initial, Coplogic or vehicle report.

3. Coplogic Reports: incident reports filed by members of the public using SFPD’s online reporting system

4. Vehicle Reports: any incident reports related to stolen and/or recovered vehicles

All incident reports must be approved by a supervising Sergeant or Lieutenant. Once a supervising officer has provided approval via electronic signature, no further changes can be made to the initial report. If changes or additional information is required or discovered during an investigation, a supplemental report may be generated to capture updates.

For example, a supplemental report may be issued to show an arrest was made, a missing person was found, or to provide additional details of property taken in a theft. To differentiate between the initial and supplemental reports, a filter can be applied to the “Report Type Description” field. Failing to filter between the initial and supplemental report can lead to double counting of incidents.

The department uses a Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) feed to share incident data with DataSF daily.

Multiple Incident Codes

Incident reports can have one or more associated Incident Codes. For example, an officer may have a warrant for an arrest and while making the arrest, discovers narcotics in the individual’s possession. The officer would record two Incident Codes: (1) for the warrant and (2) for the discovery of narcotics.

When multiple Incident Codes exist, the Incident ID, Incident Number and CAD Numbers remain the same and the Row ID field can be used as a unique identifier for each row of data. An example is provided below.

Incident Datetime	Row ID	Incident ID	Incident Number	CAD Number	Incident Code	Incident Category
1/1/18 13:20	61902222223	60044	180999999	180222222	62050	Warrant
1/1/18 13:20	61903333320	60044	180999999	180222222	16710	Drug Offense

What is not captured in this data set?

Incident reports do not necessarily capture all data surrounding policing and crime. This dataset does not capture citations (unless an associated incident report was written with the citation.) For example, a routine speeding ticket would generally not require an incident report, however, a speeding ticket that reveals a driver with a felony warrant leading to an arrest would require an incident report.

This dataset does not include any identifiable information of any person (suspect, victim, reporting party, officer, witness, etc). This dataset may not capture other law enforcement agency incidents within San Francisco (BART PD, US Park Police, for example), or reports not filed with the SFPD.

What privacy controls are this data set subject to?

The release of this data must balance the need for disclosure to the public against the risk of violating the privacy of those individuals present within the dataset. As such, the dataset is subject to several privacy controls to ensure anonymity for all persons within the data.

In summary:

1. All incident locations are shown at the intersection level only.

2. Records involving juveniles have been withheld from this dataset.

3. All records coded as confidential have been withheld from this dataset.

Incident reports may be removed from the dataset in compliance with court orders to seal records or for administrative purposes such as active internal affairs investigations and/or criminal investigations. The data shared does not include personally identifiable information on any person within the dataset (suspect, victim, reporting party, officer, witness, etc).

Mapping Coordinates

Coordinates associated with incident locations provided within the dataset are anonymized and reflect the nearest intersection of each occurrence. Intersections used in the masking are associated with either 0 or greater than 11 premise addresses. A premise address is a specific place of work or residence. Some coordinates may be omitted for the following reasons:

1. Invalid addresses - addresses submitted by officer’s pass-through validation, however, the online submission does not validate addresses on entry. While best efforts are made to match those to valid addresses when loading to the Crime Data Warehouse, there are still technical limitations to fixing all poorly formed addresses.

2. Addresses for incidents outside of SF - some cases are referred from outside SFPD districts. These will be marked as “Out of SF” in the Police District column and do not have associated geographic information.

Juvenile Data

Per California Government Code (GC) § 6254 and California Welfare and Institutions Code § 827, incidents identifying juvenile information will not be available in this dataset. All incidents with a resolution of “Cite or Arrest Juvenile” and/or “Exceptional Juvenile” have been removed from this dataset. In the case of an incident where multiple individuals, juvenile and adult, are present, the entire incident is removed. In addition, the following juvenile related Incident Codes have been removed from this dataset:

Incident Code	Incident Code Description
02010	Unlawful Sexual Intercourse with Minor
04147	Sexual Assault, Aggravated, of Child
13073	Minor, Abduction of for Prostitution
14010	Children, Annoy Or Molest
14015	Child Abuse, Sexual
14016	Sex Act, Agreement of Parent to Pay Minor Victim of
14017	Obscene Matter, Distribution to Minors
14044	Indecent Exposure (Juvenile victim)
14050	Oral Copulation, Unlawful (Juvenile Victim)
14070	Sodomy (Juvenile Victim)
15010	Child Under 14, Willful Abandonment or Nonsupport of
15015	Child, Inflicting Physical Pain, Mental Suffering, or Death
15016	Child Abuse, Exploitation
15017	Child Abuse, Pornography
15020	Persuading Child Under14 to Go Somewhere for Sex Act
15021	Kidnapping (Juvenile Victim)
15022	Kidnapping, Attempted (Juvenile Victim)
15030	Minor, Contributing To Delinquency of
15031	Tobacco Products, Selling or Furnishing to Minor
15032	Minor Purchasing or Receiving Tobacco Product
15040	Spouse, Cohabitee, Parent of Child in Common, Inflict Injury
15041	Elder Adult or Dependent Abuse (not Embezzlement or Theft)
15050	Child, Willful Desertion of
15051	Children, Abandonment & Neglect of (general)
15052	Child, Inflicting Injury Resulting in Traumatic Condition
15054	Harassing Child or Ward because of Person's Employment
15060	Child, Failure To Provide
15070	Parent, Indigent, Failure To Provide for
15080	Wife, Failure To Provide For
15090	Child, Drunk Habitually In Presence Of/Immoral Acts Before
15100	Child, Willful Cruelty To
15500	Juvenile Involved (secondary code)
16070	Marijuana, Encouraging Minor To Use
16140	Heroin, Encouraging Minor To Use
16250	Opiates, Encouraging Minor To Use
16350	Opium Derivative, Encouraging Minor To Use
16450	Hallucinogenic, Encouraging Minor To Use
16618	Opium, Encouraging Minor To Use
16628	Cocaine, Encouraging Minor To Use
16638	Methadone, Encouraging Minor To Use
16648	Amphetamine, Encouraging Minor To Use
16658	Methamphetamine, Encouraging Minor To Use
16668	Controlled Substance, Encouraging Minor To Use
17010	Minor, False Evidence Of Age
17040	Minor Inside On-sale Licensed Premise
17050	Alcohol, Purchasing by Minor
17060	Alcohol, Possession Of By Minor
17080	Alcohol, Sale Of To Minor
17090	Alcohol, Sale Of To Minor In Bar
17100	Alcohol, Sale Of By Minor
26070	Child Concealment, Depriving Lawful Custodian
27180	Glue, Restricted, Selling to Juvenile
28091	Malicious Mischief, Juvenile Suspect
29010	Minor Beyond Parental Control
29020	Curfew Violation
29030	Juvenile in Danger Of Leading Immoral Life
29040	Minor, Destitute
29050	Escapee, Juvenile
29060	Glue Sniffing, Juvenile
29070	Habitual Truant
29080	Juvenile, Intoxicated
29081	Minor, Allowing to Drive Intoxicated or after 23103 VC Conviction
29082	Tattooing Person under 18
29083	Soliciting Minor to Commit Felony
29090	Parole Violation, Juvenile
29100	Runaway
29110	Minor Without Proper Parental Care
29120	Shelter
29130	Youth Court
29170	Truant, Habitual
64050	Child, Suspicious Act Towards
74010	Missing Juvenile

The removal of juvenile related data in 2020 resulted in the retention of 3,581 records, or about 2.82% of the unredacted 2020 dataset.

Crime Category Description	Juvenile related Incident Reports
Unknown	494
Aggravated Assault	1521
Other Assaults	46
Vice, Prostitution	1
Sex Offenses (Not Rape and Prostitution)	159
Narcotics	2
Offenses Against Family and Child	1169
Malicious Mischief	12
Liquor Laws	7
Juvenile Offenses	111
Other Miscellaneous	59
Total	3581

Juvenile Records Retained, by Crime Category - 2020

Confidential Data

The SFPD routinely codifies certain incident reports as confidential for various reasons. These reasons include at the request of the reporting party, due to the sensitivity of the investigation, or at the request of the investigator or chain of command.

In 2020, 7,414 confidential flagged reports were retained by the department, or about 5.8% of the unredacted dataset. Of the 7,414 reports, 53% were also flagged as domestic violence reports.

Field Definitions

Field Name	Definition	API Name
Incident Date	The date and time when the incident occurred	incident_datetime
Incident Date	The date the incident occurred	incident_date
Incident Time	The time the incident occurred	incident_time
Incident Year	The year the incident occurred, provided as a convenience for filtering	incident_year
Incident Day of Week	The day of week the incident occurred	incident_day_of_week
Report Datetime	Distinct from Incident Datetime, Report Datetime is when the report was filed.	report_datetime
Row ID	A unique identifier for each row of data in the dataset	row_id
Incident ID	This is the system generated identifier for incident reports. Incident IDs and Incident Numbers both uniquely identify reports, but Incident Numbers are used when referencing cases and report documents.	incident_id
Incident Number	The number issued on the report, sometimes interchangeably referred to as the Case Number. This number is used to reference cases and report documents.	incident_number
CAD Number	The Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) is the system used by the Department of Emergency Management (DEM) to dispatch officers and other public safety personnel. CAD Numbers are assigned by the DEM system and linked to relevant incident reports (Incident Number). Not all Incidents will have a CAD Number. Those filed online via Coplogic (refer to “Filed Online” field) and others not filed through the DEM system will not have CAD Numbers.	cad_number
Report Type Code	A system code for report types, these have corresponding descriptions within the dataset.	report_type_code
Report Type Description	The description of the report type, can be one of: · Initial · Initial Supplement · Vehicle Initial · Vehicle Supplement · Coplogic Initial · Coplogic Supplement	report_type_description
Filed Online	Non- emergency police reports can be filed online by members of the public using SFPD’s self-service reporting system called Coplogic Values in this field will be “TRUE” if Coplogic was used to file the report. Please reference the link below for additional info: (http://sanfranciscopolice.org/reports).	filed_online
Incident Code	Incident Codes are the system codes to describe a type of incident. A single incident report can have one or more incident types associated. In those cases you will see multiple rows representing a unique combination of the Incident ID and Incident Code.	incident_code
Incident Category	A category mapped on to the Incident Code used in statistics and reporting. Mappings provided by the Crime Analysis Unit of the Police Department.	incident_category
Incident Subcategory	A subcategory mapped to the Incident Code that is used for statistics and reporting. Mappings are provided by the Crime Analysis Unit of the Police Department.	incident_subcategory
Incident Description	The description of the incident that corresponds with the Incident Code. These are generally self-explanatory.	incident_description
Resolution	The resolution of the incident at the time of the report. Can be one of: · Cite or Arrest Adult · Cite or Arrest Juvenile* · Exceptional Adult · Exceptional Juvenile* · Open or Active · Unfounded Note: once a report is filed, the Resolution will not change. Status changes and/or updates must be provided using a Supplemental Report *Incidents identifying juvenile information are not included in this dataset. Please see the Juvenile Data section for more information.	resolution
Intersection	2 or more street names that intersect closest to the incident location, separated by a backward slash (). An incident number may have multiple locations listed due to differing locations reported in supplemental reports, i.e., an arrest location or the location of missing person found. Note, the possible intersections will only include those that satisfy the privacy controls."	intersection
Supervisor District	Current Supervisor District: There are 11 members elected to the Board of Supervisors in San Francisco, each representing a geographic district. The Board of Supervisors is the legislative body for San Francisco. The districts are numbered 1 through 11. Please reference the link below for additional info: https://data.sfgov.org/d/cqbw-m5m3 As mentioned above, the actual location of police incidents have been partially obfuscated (anonymized) to protect the privacy of those involved. This means that the Supervisor District boundary is assigned based on the intersection closest to the incident location. This may differ slightly from the District the incident actually occurred within.	supervisor_district
Supervisor District 2012	Previous 2012-2022 Supervisor District: There are 11 members elected to the Board of Supervisors in San Francisco, each representing a geographic district. The Board of Supervisors is the legislative body for San Francisco. The districts are numbered 1 through 11. Please reference the link below for additional info: https://data.sfgov.org/d/keex-zmn4 As mentioned above, the actual location of police incidents have been partially obfuscated (anonymized) to protect the privacy of those involved. This means that the Supervisor District boundary is assigned based on the intersection closest to the incident location. This may differ slightly from the District the incident actually occurred within.	supervisor_district_2012