Why This is Important
These data show the number of drug-related incidents reported by the police department, and so, it directly reflects where policing of drug-related incidents occurs. Unreported drug-related incidents are not counted in this data (e.g., drug-related activities that are not surveilled by the police).
This metric is useful to track because drug crimes impact individuals, households, neighborhoods and the community as a whole. Drug crimes are often linked with other violent and property crimes, as well as with physical and mental health issues. Historic data show that neighborhoods with more residents of color and those with lower income experience more frequent policing, which itself can compromise residents’ safety as well. It’s also useful for communities to be able to track where policing of drug crimes is occurring.
About the Data
The drug crimes per square mile metric shows the average number of arrests per square mile for drug-related crimes by the City of Durham Police. Drug-related crimes include all incidents involving drug and paraphernalia manufacturing, distributing, and possession charges. The drug crimes per square mile metric shows the average number of arrests per square mile for drug-related crimes by the City of Durham Police. For more detailed Durham crime reporting visit RAIDS Online.
Source: Durham Police Department and Durham County Sheriff
Additional Resources
| Resource | Learn More and Take Action |
|---|---|
| Durham Beyond Policing | Durham Beyond Policing is a grassroots coalition to divest from policing and prisons and reinvest municipal resources into supporting the health and wellbeing of Black & Brown communities, benefiting all community members in Durham, NC. |
| Counting Crime: A Lecture on the Politics of Crime Data and Its Uses | Video of a lecture given by Tamara K. Nopper on the politics, history, and methods of counting crime—and who benefits from crime data. |
| Durham Community Safety & Wellness Taskforce | In 2021, the Durham Community Safety & Wellness Task Force was formed by the governing bodies of the City of Durham, Durham County, and Durham Public Schools Board of Education with a mission to recommend programs to enhance public safety and wellness that rely on community-based prevention, intervention, and re-entry services as alternatives to policing and the criminal legal system. |
| Durham Police Department | The vision of the Durham Police Department is to be a progressive law enforcement agency committed to reducing crime by providing the best quality of service, fostering public confidence and maintaining the highest standards of excellence as a community partner for positive change. |
| Durham County Office of the Sheriff | The quality of neighborhood life, its safety and welfare comes from the commitment of each of its citizens. The Durham County Sheriff’s Office takes pride in its role as a citizen of the community; partners with its members in the delivery of quality law enforcement services. |
| Partners Against Crime | The Partners Against Crime (PAC) program is a community-based volunteer organization that promotes collaboration among police officers, Durham residents, and city and county government officials to find sustainable solutions to community crime problems and quality of life issues. |
| Mapping Police Violence | A crowd-sourced data project addressing the issue that law enforcement agencies and the government fail to provide accurate numbers on the number of lives taken at the hands of police. While there have been efforts by the government to document the number of police killings such as the USA National Vital Statistics System (NVSS) or a recent FBI program which has failed to deliver results as of 2021, there is still no way to understand the scope of police violence. They believe the data represented in Mapping Police Violence is the most comprehensive accounting of people killed by police since 2013. |
| Open Data Policing NC | Open Data Policing NC aggregates, visualizes, and publishes public records related to all known traffic stops to have occurred in North Carolina since January 1, 2002. |
| RAIDS Online | An online portal for viewing custom filters of crime data. |
Select a base geography (depending on the dataset, different geographies may be available).
Data Distribution, 2016
Drug Crimes per Square Mile
