A data-driven analysis of crime patterns in Fort Wayne, including location trends, incident types, and timing insights.
This report analyzes crime patterns in Fort Wayne, Indiana during calendar year 2023 using the local police incident dataset in fortwayne2023.csv. The source file is not a crime-only table; it includes traffic stops, alarms, welfare checks, EMS/fire calls, suspicious-person calls, citizen assists, follow-up activity, and other police service records. Because of that, the core analytical task was to isolate a defensible crime-focused subset before describing what happens most often, where incidents cluster, and when activity intensifies.
The final analysis uses a conservative crime filter designed to favor validity over volume. That choice matters. If the raw incident log were summarized without filtering, the dominant categories would be traffic stops, alarms, suspicious-person calls, and citizen assistance rather than crime.
The 2023 source file contains 154,478 rows. Of these, 152,095 (98.46%) are tagged as Fort Wayne, so the analysis focuses strictly on the city rather than surrounding areas.
After filtering for crime-related incidents, the final dataset includes 30,336 incidents, representing 19.95% of the original police incident log.
The analysis uses the following key fields: