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Council committee backs quarterly violent-crime data report and dashboard restoration
Summary
A standing committee voted to recommend Bill 462, directing the Department of Public Safety and police to provide disaggregated quarterly violent-crime data (single-year ages, location); members amended the measure to add gender and residence categories and discussed restoring a public dashboard.
A Pittsburgh City Council standing committee on May 6 recommended approval of Bill 462, a resolution directing the Department of Public Safety and the Bureau of Police to provide detailed violent-crime data at least quarterly, including single-year ages and location.
Council member Warwick introduced the request and moved to have the department provide a quarterly report that breaks out the ages of people involved in incidents so council can move beyond anecdote to data. "What this is is a request that the public safety department provide a quarterly report on violent crime in the city," Warwick said, asking for age of accused and age of victims so council can understand patterns rather than rely on news reports.
Councilwoman Charlotte and others pressed for additional disaggregation. "I would ask that gender also be added," Councilwoman Gross said, noting a long-standing request from the Gender Equity Commission for gender data from city departments. Gross also proposed distinguishing broadly whether involved people are city residents or nonresidents to inform policy responses.
Members discussed whether a public dashboard already exists. Council President Laveau said the data are presented routinely at Stop the Violence board meetings and argued pulling the information together for council should not be difficult. Several members noted an older public-facing dashboard was taken down in 2021–22 and urged either restoring it or providing summarized reports to council and the public.
The committee adopted amendments by substitution to the resolution (members and the law department worked on language) and gave Bill 462 an affirmative recommendation as amended. The committee recorded that the changes were intended to make the reporting practicable and to align with law-department suggestions.
Next steps: the committee recommended the amended Bill 462 for final consideration by the full council; members indicated practical follow-up items (how the dashboard or report will be published and what exact fields will be included) would be worked out before final passage.
