Crime incident reports are provided by Boston Police Department (BPD) to document the initial details surrounding an incident to which BPD officers respond. This is a dataset containing records from the new crime incident report system, which includes a reduced set of fields focused on capturing the type of incident as well as when and where it occurred. Records in the new system begin in June of 2015.

The Analyze Boston Data Exports posted now are the updated incident data from the Mark43 RMS Database which launched in September of 2019 and is complete through present with the exclusion of data that falls under MGL ch.41 s.98f. The 2019 data that was originally posted contained combined exports from the Intergraph RMS and the Mark43 RMS during 2019 but the Extract/Transfer/Load process was not updated during the transition.

The Domestic Violence Research Project was a pilot study designed to examine the dynamics of domestic violence within two of the ten police districts that comprise the city of Boston. The objectives were to collect data on domestic violence in greater detail than previously possible, conduct various analyses on this information, and determine how the findings could best be used to improve the police, prosecutorial, and social service responses to domestic violence. Data for 1993 are a stratified random sample of reported domestic violence incidents occurring throughout the year. The sample represents approximately 27 percent of the domestic violence incidents reported in 1993 for the two districts studied, B3 and D4. The 1994 data include all reported incidents occurring in the two districts during the period May to July. After the incident selection process was completed, data were collected from police incident reports, follow-up investigation reports, criminal history reports, and court dockets. Variables include arrest offenses, time of incident, location of incident, witnesses (including children), nature and extent of injuries, drug and alcohol use, history of similar incidents, whether there were restraining orders in effect, and basic demographic information on victims and offenders. Criminal history information was coded into five distinct categories: (1) violent offenses, (2) nonviolent offenses, (3) domestic violence offenses, (4) drug/alcohol offenses, and (5) firearms offenses.

Crime incident reports are provided by Boston Police Department (BPD) to document the initial details surrounding an incident to which BPD officers respond. This is a dataset containing records from a legacy crime incident report system, which includes multiple fields capturing when, where, and how the incident occurred, as well as who was involved. The records span from July 2012 to August of 2015.

The FIO program encompasses a wide range of interactions between the Boston Police Department (BPD) and private individuals. By releasing the records of these interactions, BPD hopes to add transparency to the execution of the program while still protecting the privacy of the individuals involved. These records are now sourced from three different record management systems titled: (OLD RMS) (NEW RMS) and (MARK43). The differences between the resulting files are described below.

About the FIO Records (Mark43) Files (Sept 29 2023 - Dec 31 2024)

These records are compiled from the BPD’s new Records Management System (RMS) on the BPD's FIO program. MARK43 went live September 29, 2019 and the FIO information has been structured into two separate tables. These tables are the same titles as (NEW RMS) but include new or different data points as retrieved from MARK43.

• FieldContact, which lists each contact between BPD and one or more individuals
• FieldContact_Name, which lists each individual involved in these contacts.

A FIO Data Key has also been created and posted to help distinguish the data categories (Data Key (Mark43)).

Lastly, FIOs are maintained in a live database and information related to each individual may change overtime. The data provided here should be considered a static representation of the Field Interaction and/or Observation that occurred in 2019.

NULL indicates no entry was made for an optional field.

About the FIO Records 2015 (New RMS) and 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020 (Jan 1 - Sept 29 2020) Files

These records are compiled from the BPD’s new Records Management System (RMS) on the BPD's FIO program. The new RMS, which went live in June, 2015, structures the FIO information into two separate tables:

• FieldContact, which lists each contact between BPD and one or more individuals
• FieldContact_Name, which lists each individual involved in these contacts

While these two tables align on the field contact number (fc_num) column, it is not methodologically correct to join the two datasets for the purpose of generating aggregate statistics on columns from the FieldContact table. Doing so would lead to incorrect estimates stemming from contacts with multiple individuals. As noted in the Data Key (New RMS) file, several of the columns in the FieldContact table apply to the contact as a whole, but may not necessarily apply to each individual involved in the contact. These include:

• frisked
• searchperson
• summonsissued
• circumstances
• basis
• contact_reason

For example, the frisked column contains a value of Y if any of the individuals involved in a contact were frisked, but it would be inaccurate to assume that all individuals were frisked during that contact. As such, extrapolating from the frisked column for a contact to each individual and then summing across them would give an artificially high estimate of the number of people frisked in total. Likewise, the summonsissued column indicates when someone involved in a contact was issued a summons, but this does not imply that everyone involved in a contact was issued a summons.

For a detailed listing of columns in each table, see both tables of the Data Key (New RMS) file below.

About the FIO Records 2011 - 2015 (Old RMS) File

These records are sourced from BPD's older RMS, which was retired in June, 2015. This system (which stored all records in a single table, rather than the two tables in the newer system) captures similar information to the new RMS, but users should note that the fields are not identical and exercise care when comparing or combining records from each system.

Additional Notes

• The data provided is FIO information entered into the new system from June, 2015 through December, 2016, which includes some interactions which occurred before June, 2015 which were entered after the transition from the old system. For comprehensive analyses of interactions prior to the introduction of the new RMS, users will need to include data on interactions prior to June, 2015 from the 2015 (New RMS) file.
• These files are extracted from live databases which may have records added or updated at any time. As such, the number and content of records shared here may differ slightly from versions used to produce analyses such as those linked below, due to subsequent revisions to the underlying database records.
• A contact can consist of an observation of a vehicle, without direct contact with a person. This would create a record where no person-level details are recorded.

For more information on the FIO Program, please visit:

Boston Police Commissioner Announces Field Interrogation and Observation (FIO) Study Results

Commissioner Evans Continues Efforts to Increase Transparency and Accountability of Policing Activities to the Public

Boston Police Department Releases Latest Field Interrogation Observation Data

The Shootings dashboard contains information on shooting incidents where a victim was struck by a bullet, either fatally or non-fatally; that occurred in the City of Boston and fall under Boston Police Department jurisdiction. The dashboard does not contain records for self-inflicted gunshot wounds or shootings determined to be justifiable. Information on the incident, and the demographics of victims are included. This information is updated based on analysis conducted by the Boston Regional Intelligence Center under the Boston Police Department Bureau of Intelligence and Analysis. The data is for 2015 forward, with a 7 day rolling delay to allow for analysis and data entry to occur.

Crime incident reports are provided by Boston Police Department (BPD) to document the initial details surrounding an incident to which BPD officers respond. Data includes records created after January 1, 2018 and is updated once per day. Incidents appear in this list with a seven day lag period.

These data measure the effects of blood alcohol content coupled with officer reports at the time of arrest on driving while intoxicated (DWI) case outcomes (jury verdicts and guilty pleas). Court records and relevant police reports for drunk-driving cases drawn from the greater metropolitan areas of Boston, Denver, and Los Angeles were compiled to produce this data collection. Cases were selected to include roughly equal proportions of guilty pleas, guilty verdicts, and not-guilty verdicts. DWI cases were compared on the quality and quantity of evidence concerning the suspect's behavior, with the evidence coming from any mention of 20 standard visual detection cues prior to the stop, 13 attributes of general appearance and behavior immediately after the stop, and the results of as many as 7 field sobriety tests. Questions concerned driving-under-the-influence cues (scoring sheet), observed traffic violations and actual traffic accidents, the verdict, DWI history, whether the stop resulted from an accident, whether the attorney was public or private, and sanctions that followed the verdict. Also included were demographic questions on age, sex, and ethnicity.

The Boston Police Department's Homicide Investigation Unit, in conjunction with the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office, investigates deaths that occur while a prisoner is under police custody. This may include incidents that occur during arrest, transport, while in a holding cell, etc.

The Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office has legal authority over all death investigations in Suffolk County. They investigate all in custody deaths in conjunction with BPD, and make a determination as to whether there is a violation of criminal law.

Due to the infrequency of in-custody deaths, this dashboard will be updated as soon as possible following an incident, or a new medical examiner report is received. If there are no incidents in a year the dashboard will be updated annually to record a zero for the previous year.

This study sought to inform various issues related to the extent of victims' adverse psychological and behavioral reactions to aggravated assault differentiated by the offenders' bias or non-bias motives. The goals of the research included (1) identifying the individual and situational factors related to bias- and non-bias-motivated aggravated assault, (2) determining the comparative severity and duration of psychological after-effects attributed to the victimization experience, and (3) measuring the comparative extent of behavioral avoidance strategies of victims. Data were collected on all 560 cases from the Boston Police Department's Community Disorders Unit from 1992 to 1997 that involved victim of a bias-motivated aggravated assault. In addition, data were collected on a 10-percent stratified random sample of victims of non-bias assaults within the city of Boston from 1993 to 1997, resulting in another 544 cases. For each of the cases, information was collected from each police incident report. Additionally, the researchers attempted to contact each victim in the sample to participate in a survey about their victimization experiences. The victim questionnaires included questions in five general categories: (1) incident information, (2) police response, (3) prosecutor response, (4) personal impact of the crime, and (5) respondent's personal characteristics. Criminal history variables were also collected regarding the number and type of adult and juvenile arrest charges against offenders and victims, as well as dispositions and arraignment dates.

Bike collisions in Boston (2009 - 2012). The data are derived from Boston Police Department (BPD) incident narrative reports, as organized and compiled by Dahianna Lopez (Harvard Injury Control Research Center) and partners at BPD, BARI and the Boston Cyclists Union. Visitors can also explore the data through an interactive map hosted by BostonMap.

The Shots Fired dashboard contains information on shooting incidents that did not result in any victim(s) being struck; but occurred in the city of Boston and fall under Boston Police Department jurisdiction. This information may come into the department through a 911 call, a ShotSpotter activation, or an officer on-siting an incident. Shots fired incidents are confirmed when ballistics evidence is recovered, or in the absence of ballistics evidence, there is strong witness or officer corroboration. This information is updated based on analysis conducted by the Boston Regional Intelligence Center under the Boston Police Department Bureau of Intelligence and Analysis. The data is for 2015 forward, with a 7 day rolling delay to allow for analysis and data entry to occur.