Lowell Police Department Unveils New Crime Dashboard to Increase Transparency

LOWELL — Community members can now track crime in their neighborhood, keep track of trends citywide, and more, as the Lowell Police Department has unveiled a new crime dashboard to increase transparency. 

The new interactive dashboard is part of LowellPolice.org. It provides access to data from incident reports collected by the department, and is made available in the interest of transparency.

Users can sort crime by neighborhood or type of crime, and locate the approximate area of reported incidents on a map. For privacy and safety reasons, exact address information is not shown.

Arrest data can be sorted by date, neighborhood, type of criminal charge and the race of the defendant. Defendant names are not available

“We are unveiling this new crime dashboard because the Lowell Police Department is committed to maintaining trust through transparency,” said Superintendent Greg Hudon. “We invite residents, community leaders, and researchers to explore this tool to better understand crime and public safety in the City of Lowell.”

The dashboard is made possible thanks the work of the Lowell Police Department Crime Analysis and Intelligence Unit (CAIU). The CAIU is responsible for collecting, tracking, and analyzing all crime data.

The four analysts in the CAIU use data to identify crime trends, locate hot spots, and uncover the underlying drivers of crime. That data is provided to police supervisors on a daily basis to help target patrols and other measures. The CAIU also gathers National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) data and provides it to Massachusetts State Police and the FBI. 

“The Crime Analysis and Intelligence Unit is critical to ensuring that our operations are efficient and informed by the latest data,” said Superintendent Hudon. “The work of our CAIU team makes all of our officers more effective. This crime dashboard allows us to share data with the public so they can better understand crime and public safety in the City of Lowell.”

The Crime Dashboard can be found at: https://lowellpolice.org/crime-data/.