Redwood City Police Department Activity

Print Feedback

Font Size: + -

What's New?

Welcome to our new Police Department Activities page. Here you will find information about how and where our police officers are spending their time. This includes what kinds of calls our community makes into 9-1-1 (dispatch) as well as what activity officers initiate on their own. Data shared covers 2015-2020 and is reported by Redwood City Police Dispatch.

We want to answer your questions and hope the information on this page is helpful.

Is there something more that you would like to see on the department staffing? Send suggestions to communitypolicing@redwoodcity.org

Definitions

While our goal is to share information in a transparent, clear way for all members of the community to understand, there are some technical terms that we would like to define for clarification.

If you would like to request further explanation of any of these terms, please email us at communitypolicing@redwoodcity.org.

Terms and Definitions (Click to Expand)

TERM	DEFINITION
Activities	RCPD Activities involve both calls for service from the public and officer initiated activity - both of which are routed through police dispatch
Activity Source	Calls that are received through the 9-1-1 Dispatch Center are categorized as "Calls for Service." Proactive community policing and patrol services are categorized as "Officer Initiated."
Block Group	Census designated clusters of city blocks
Subtype	When these activities are documented by dispatch they are assigned a subtype, which for the purposes of this project have been grouped into the types seen on the right

Summary at a Glance

The summary below visually shares a high-level summation of information. For an interactive experience including customizing filters, data points, and demographic information, please see the Interactive Dashboards section further down this page.

From 2015 - 2020 Redwood City Police Department documented 571,184 activities, 94% of those were within a Redwood City neighborhood

RCPD Activities involve both calls for service from the public and officer initiated activity - both of which are routed through police dispatch
When these activities are documented by dispatch they are assigned a subtype, which for the purposes of this project have been grouped into the types seen on the right
44% of all activity is a Person or Location Check, which can include things like routine patrol and Location Checks as well as responding to a Wireless Call to Dispatch or a General Call for Service.

Interactive Dashboards on Redwood City Police Department Activity

Activity Data Story

Activity by Type (Click to Expand)

Activity on the Map (Click to Expand)

Notes on the data:

These activities are from the Redwood City Police Department's (RCPD) RIMS Record and Case Management System in which all activity reported to dispatch by an officer and all 911 calls routed through dispatch are documented. Upon creation the record is assigned a type code (here shown as the "subtype"), these codes were grouped into "types" by RCPD for this project. This chart shows activity count, not time spent.
Of the activities, 99% were successfully mapped using the address recorded upon creation of the record. The address was used to identify the location's neighborhood, council district, and census blockgroup. The addresses were removed for privacy and represented instead as one of the previously listed areas or as an anonymized point with restricted level of detail viewing capabilities (activities map). 5% of mapped activities were in San Mateo County outside Redwood City and 1% were outside San Mateo county in California or elsewhere in the US.
Blockgroup demographic data from the US Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates 2019 tables: Race: B02001 (universe: total population), Ethnicity: B03003 (universe: total population), % Born Outside the US: B99051 (universe: total population) Household Income: B19013 (universe: households). The dataset includes "ethnicity" as either hispanic ("Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin") or non-hispanic. The dataset includes race as: White, Black or African American, American Indian or Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, Asian, Other, Two or More Races. “Hispanic” in this visual is all races where ethnicity is hispanic. White, Black, Asian, Other, Two or More Races, Pacific Islander, and Native American do not distinguish by ethnicity. Visit this page for more details: https://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/assets/pdf/checked/1/Explanation_of_Draft_Standards.pdf
Race and ethnicity data are from the US Census Bureau. The dataset is here. The dataset includes "ethnicity" as either hispanic ("Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin") or non-hispanic. The dataset includes race as: White, Black or African American, American Indian or Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, Asian, Other, Two or More Races. Visit this page for more details: https://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/assets/pdf/checked/1/Explanation_of_Draft_Standards.pdf