Introduction

Crime statistics in the Portland metropolitan area are tracked by neighborhood. There are currently 94 neighborhoods in the Portland Metropolitan area. These neighborhoods, in turn, are grouped into nine districts. Neighborhood crime management and planning is done at the neighborhood level by "associations". For example, the Alameda Neighborhood Association has responsibility for the Alameda neighborhood. This keeps the vision definition, planning, and evaluation at the local level, but makes it difficult to manage common definitions and reporting.

The neighborhood boundaries used in the reporting here were determined from neighborhood associations by their by-laws and extensive in-person and phone interviews. This information was entered by the city into their GIS information system, and it was these same boundaries that we used for the mapping here. This GIS database defines 84 neighborhoods recognized by the City of Portland and 7 other unaffiliated neighborhoods. Additionally, there are 12 areas that are shared by more than one neighborhood, and seven unclaimed areas. For the crime reporting here, each area is reported as a distinct entity, with no data duplication. Totals for the overlapping and unclaimed areas are included.

Neighborhood boundaries and definitions change yearly, which makes it hard to define crime trends in some areas. These areas are marked as "missing" on the trends maps.

Preliminary statistics are prepared by the neighborhood association based on their local neighborhood definitions and needs. Later, a Portland Police Bureau Statistical Report is published for the year that presents the statistics for the year based on definitions defined by the FBI (for cross-city comparison) and with corrections from the original neighborhood statistics. It was the Portland Police Burea Statistical Reports that were used for the maps, charts, and database here.