🚔 Chicago Crime Data Scraper

🚀 Export Chicago Police Department incident reports with primary type, location, ward, district, arrest flag, and geo-coordinates.

🕒 Last updated: 2026-05-25 · 📊 23 fields per record · 🚔 Chicago PD · 2001-present · Millions of CPD-reported incidents

Pull structured records from Chicago Crime Data — clean fields ready as CSV, JSON, JSONL, Excel, or XML for downstream pipelines.

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Copy to your AI assistant

Copy this block into ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor, or any LLM to start using this actor.

parseforge/chicago-crime-data-scraper on Apify. Call: ApifyClient("TOKEN").actor("parseforge/chicago-crime-data-scraper").call(run_input={...}), then client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).list_items().items for results. Key inputs: maxItems (integer, default 10), primaryType (string), district (string). Full actor spec: fetch build via GET https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/parseforge~chicago-crime-data-scraper (Bearer TOKEN). Get token: https://console.apify.com/account/integrations

The Chicago Crime Data Scraper extracts incident records published by the Chicago Police Department (CPD) on the City of Chicago Open Data Portal. Every record includes case number, date, block, IUCR code, primary type, description, location type, arrest flag, beat, district, ward, and lat/lon - exported as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML.

The scraper supports filtering by primary type (THEFT, BATTERY, ROBBERY, etc.) and district. Coverage spans every reported incident from 2001 through the present (millions of records).

🎯 Target Audience	💡 Primary Use Cases
Journalists, researchers, public safety analysts, real estate professionals, insurance modelers, civic-tech	Crime trend reporting, neighborhood analysis, insurance underwriting, urban research, public-policy work

📋 What the Chicago Crime Data Scraper does

• Connects to the official Chicago Police Department Crime Data dataset.
• Paginates through every record matching your filters.
• Normalises each record into a flat, analysis-ready row.
• Exports as CSV, Excel, JSON or XML - directly from your Apify dataset.
• Refreshes on demand or on schedule (hourly, daily, weekly).

💡 Why it matters: stop copy-pasting from a portal that paginates 100 records at a time. One click, full dataset, your format.

🎬 Full Demo

🚧 Coming soon

⚙️ Input

Field	Type	Description
maxItems	integer	Max incidents to export. Free: 10, Paid: up to 1,000,000.
primaryType	string (enum)	Filter by primary crime type: THEFT, BATTERY, ROBBERY, ASSAULT, BURGLARY, HOMICIDE, etc.
district	string	CPD district code (e.g. 001, 007).

Example 1 - Recent robberies

{
  "maxItems": 500,
  "primaryType": "ROBBERY"
}

Example 2 - District 7 incidents

{
  "maxItems": 1000,
  "district": "007"
}

⚠️ Good to Know: free users are capped at 10 records per run as a preview. Upgrade to any paid plan to unlock full exports (up to 1,000,000 records). Data is collected directly from the official public source - no login or API key required.

📊 Output

Field	Type	Description
🖼 imageUrl	string	Always null
📌 title	string	Primary type (e.g. ROBBERY)
🔗 url	string	Source dataset URL
🆔 id	string	CPD case number
📋 case_number	string	CPD case number
📅 date	string	Incident date/time
📍 block	string	Approximate block address
🔢 iucr	string	Illinois Uniform Crime Reporting code
🚨 primary_type	string	Crime category
📝 description	string	Detailed crime description
🏠 location_description	string	Location type (STREET, RESIDENCE, etc.)
👮 arrest	boolean	Whether an arrest was made
🏠 domestic	boolean	Whether incident was domestic
🔢 beat	string	CPD beat
🗺 district	string	CPD district
🗳 ward	string	City ward
🏘 community_area	string	Community area code
🔢 fbi_code	string	FBI crime code
📅 year	integer	Year of incident
📍 latitude	number	Latitude
📍 longitude	number	Longitude
🕒 scrapedAt	string	ISO scrape timestamp
❌ error	string	Populated on failure

Sample record (real run output):

{
  "title": "ROBBERY",
  "url": "https://data.cityofchicago.org/Public-Safety/Crimes-2001-to-Present/ijzp-q8t2",
  "id": "JK260213",
  "case_number": "JK260213",
  "date": "2026-05-17T00:00:00.000",
  "block": "064XX S HARVARD AVE",
  "iucr": "0320",
  "primary_type": "ROBBERY",
  "description": "STRONG ARM - NO WEAPON",
  "location_description": "STREET",
  "arrest": false,
  "domestic": false,
  "beat": "0722",
  "district": "007",
  "ward": "6",
  "community_area": "68",
  "fbi_code": "03",
  "year": 2026,
  "latitude": 41.777651774,
  "longitude": -87.633371447,
  "scrapedAt": "2026-05-25T22:28:32.555Z",
  "error": null
}

✨ Why choose this Actor

✅	What you get
🎯	Direct extraction from the official Chicago Police Department Crime Data portal
📊	23 normalised fields per record
⚡	Run on-demand or on schedule
📁	CSV, Excel, JSON, XML - your choice
🔌	Integrates with Make, Zapier, Slack, Airbyte, Google Drive
🆓	Free preview (10 records) - no credit card
🌍	Public data only - no login or API key required
🚀	Maintained and updated as the source schema evolves

📈 How it compares to alternatives

Approach	Speed	Maintenance	Cost	Export formats
Copy-paste from portal	🐌 Hours	🛠 High	Free	Limited
Build your own scraper	🐢 Days	🛠 Ongoing	Dev time	DIY
Generic SaaS scraper	🚶 Slow	🛠 Manual config	$$$	Generic
This Actor	🚀 Minutes	✅ Maintained	💸 From free	CSV / Excel / JSON / XML

🚀 How to use

1. Create a free Apify account with $5 credit - no credit card required.
2. Open the Chicago Crime Data Scraper page in Apify Store and click Try for free.
3. Configure the input (see Input section above).
4. Click Start - the run will produce a downloadable dataset.
5. Export as CSV, Excel, JSON or XML, or stream to your destination via integrations.

💼 Business use cases

Lead generation & sales

🎯	Example
📞	Build target lists filtered by category, region, or status
🧠	Enrich CRM records with up-to-date public attributes

Compliance & risk

🎯	Example
🔍	Continuous monitoring of changes in official records
📋	Audit-trail-friendly exports for compliance teams

Market research

🎯	Example
📊	Track market dynamics over time
🌍	Benchmark across regions, categories, or operators

Operations & automation

🎯	Example
🔄	Schedule recurring pulls and pipe straight into your BI tool
🚨	Alert on threshold or status changes

🔌 Automating Chicago Crime Data Scraper

• Make - receive new records into a scenario and route them anywhere.
• Zapier - trigger on new dataset rows and push to 6,000+ apps.
• Slack - post fresh records into a channel for the team.
• Airbyte - sync the dataset into your warehouse (BigQuery, Snowflake, Redshift, Postgres).
• GitHub - store snapshots in a repo for diffing over time.
• Google Drive / Sheets - auto-append rows to a spreadsheet.

🌟 Beyond business use cases

Research

• Academic studies on Chicago Police Department Crime Data trends, distributions and outliers.

Personal projects

• Hobbyist data viz, dashboards, blog posts and side-projects.

Non-profit

• Open-data journalism, transparency audits, civic-tech tools.

Experimentation

• Train ML models on a clean, structured slice of public data.

🤖 Ask an AI assistant about this scraper

• ChatGPT
• Claude
• Perplexity
• Microsoft Copilot

Paste this README into any of them and ask: "How would I use the Chicago Crime Data Scraper to solve X?"

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

❓ Is the data accurate?

Yes - the scraper pulls directly from the official Chicago Police Department Crime Data public dataset. Accuracy mirrors the source.

❓ Do I need an API key or login?

No. Everything is public data. Just run the actor.

❓ How fresh is the data?

Each run fetches the latest available records from data.cityofchicago.org at request time.

❓ How many records can I export?

Free users: 10 (preview). Paid users: up to 1,000,000 per run.

❓ Can I export to Excel?

Yes - choose CSV, Excel, JSON or XML on the dataset page.

❓ Can I schedule recurring runs?

Yes - Apify Schedules supports hourly/daily/weekly/cron. Pair with integrations for auto-delivery.

❓ Is this affiliated with Chicago Police Department Crime Data?

No. This is an independent tool that exposes publicly available data via a structured interface.

❓ What happens if the source goes down?

The actor surfaces a clean error record. Re-run when the source is back up.

❓ Can I filter the output?

Yes - the input section above lists every supported filter, exposed as a typed input field.

❓ Can I use it for commercial purposes?

Yes, subject to the source dataset's terms of use. Always review the original publisher's license.

❓ Where can I get help?

Open our contact form - we usually respond within one business day.

🔌 Integrate with any app

Make · Zapier · Slack · Airbyte · GitHub · Google Drive · Google Sheets · BigQuery · Snowflake · Redshift · Postgres · MySQL · MongoDB · Kafka · Webhooks · REST API.

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🆘 Need Help? Open our contact form

⚠️ Disclaimer: This is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Chicago Police Department Crime Data. It only collects publicly available data published by the source. Always review the source's terms of use before commercial deployment.