Chicago Police Data: Theft Leads Offenses with 98,853 Incidents, Assault Follows with 38,690

The gap between a reported crime and a pair of handcuffs is the most telling metric in municipal law enforcement. According to Chicago police incident data, property crimes consume the vast majority of public safety resources, yet they yield the lowest clearance rates. A close reading of the city's open records reveals exactly where police make arrests—and where they don't.

Bottom line: Theft dominates the city's incident reports with 98,853 recorded cases, followed by Battery at 63,608. However, offenses requiring active investigation like Burglary see arrest rates as low as 4.3%, while direct officer encounters like concealed carry violations result in an arrest 96.9% of the time.

Here is the reality of the city's public safety landscape, broken down strictly by the numbers.

Most Frequently Reported Offenses in Chicago

When tracking the most common crimes chicago residents experience, property and physical altercations lead by a wide margin. The raw incident counts highlight the sheer volume of reports flowing into the city's dispatch centers.

Assault represents a massive portion of the city's violent crime reports. The data shows 38,690 incidents classified under this primary type. Despite the high reporting volume, police made 4,712 arrests, resulting in a 12.2% clearance rate.

Property crimes outpace violent crimes significantly. The top tier of chicago offense types is defined by unauthorized taking or damaging of property.

Top Offenses by Total Incident Volume

The following table outlines the highest-volume offenses recorded in the primary and secondary municipal records.

These figures dictate how patrol units are deployed across the city. Responding to 98,853 thefts requires thousands of man-hours, even when the vast majority of those reports do not result in a suspect being detained.

Comparing Property Crimes: Theft, Burglary, and Criminal Damage

A closer look at chicago theft statistics reveals a stark divide between the occurrence of a crime and the likelihood of legal consequence. Property crimes are notoriously difficult to clear without immediate on-scene apprehension or high-quality surveillance footage.

Theft leads all categories with 98,853 incidents. Out of those nearly 100,000 reports, police recorded just 8,517 arrests.

Burglary shows an even steeper drop-off. With 18,443 reported incidents, officers made only 785 arrests. This translates to an arrest rate of just 4.3%, meaning a burglar in Chicago has a better than 95% chance of avoiding immediate apprehension.

Criminal Damage reports follow a similar pattern. The city logged 46,838 incidents of property damage, but recorded only 1,996 arrests.

The result? Property crimes act as a constant, heavy baseline of police activity that rarely culminates in a booking.

Arrest Rates for Major Offenses in Chicago

Volume only tells half the story. The arrest percentage reveals how actionable a specific crime report actually is.

When a crime requires extensive detective work to identify a suspect, the arrest rate plummets. When the crime is highly visible or involves severe violence, the rate climbs.

Here is the thing:

Violent crimes with clear victims or physical evidence tend to clear at higher rates than property disputes, but they still remain relatively low overall. Homicide shows 840 incidents with 263 arrests, yielding a 31.3% arrest rate. This is the highest clearance rate among major violent felonies in this dataset.

Offenses with the Lowest Arrest Rates

The offenses that are hardest to prove or investigate after the fact sit at the bottom of the clearance metrics.

Intimidation sits at the absolute bottom. Out of 292 reported incidents, police made only 6 arrests. Proving intimidation requires establishing intent and verifying threats, which often devolves into a "he-said, she-said" scenario without documented evidence.

Human Trafficking shows 33 incidents but only 1 arrest, a 3.0% rate. These cases are highly complex federal-level investigations that often take years to build, meaning local immediate arrests are incredibly rare.

Sex Offense reports total 2,235 incidents, yielding 178 arrests. This 8.0% rate highlights the investigative hurdles and evidentiary requirements necessary to secure a warrant in these cases.

High Arrest Rates for Specific Violations

But there is a catch. Not all arrest rates are in the single digits.

Offenses that occur directly in the presence of a police officer show near-perfect clearance rates. In these scenarios, the discovery of the crime and the arrest of the suspect happen simultaneously.

Concealed Carry License Violation is the clearest example. The data shows 424 incidents and 411 arrests, an astonishing 96.9% arrest rate. Officers typically discover these violations during traffic stops or Terry stops; if you are caught carrying illegally, you are going to jail immediately.

Interference With Public Officer follows the same logic. With 1,612 incidents and 1,441 arrests, the rate sits at 89.4%. You cannot interfere with an officer unless an officer is already present to arrest you for it.

Public Peace Violation rounds out this tier. The city recorded 1,925 incidents and 973 arrests, resulting in a 50.5% clearance rate. These are often disorderly conduct situations where police arrive, issue warnings, and arrest those who refuse to comply.

FBI Severity Codes and Corresponding Offenses

Local police departments classify crimes based on municipal and state statutes. However, to track crime nationally, the FBI uses standardized severity codes. Analyzing the chicago crime severity FBI classifications reveals how local incidents map to federal databases.

The secondary dataset categorizes Chicago's local incident reports into specific two-digit or alphanumeric FBI codes. This filtering process often changes the raw incident counts, as not every local report meets the strict federal definition for a specific crime tier.

How Chicago Offenses Map to FBI Codes

The table below shows how specific local primary types are categorized under federal severity codes, alongside their incident and arrest counts.

Notice the discrepancies between local reporting and federal coding.

Under the local primary type, Chicago reported 38,690 assaults. But under the FBI's 08A severity code for Assault, the number drops to 26,431 incidents. This indicates that over 12,000 local assault reports were either downgraded, reclassified, or did not meet the federal threshold for an 08A categorization.

The same structural difference appears in Burglary. The primary local data shows 18,443 burglaries. Yet, the FBI severity 06 code for Burglary captures only 7,002 incidents.

The Severity of Violent Crime Codes

The FBI separates physical violence into distinct tiers. Code 08B covers Battery, which logged a massive 63,608 incidents and 11,652 arrests. Battery requires actual physical contact, making it more severe in practical terms than simple assault, which often involves only the threat of violence.

Code 02 is reserved for Criminal Sexual Assault. The data shows 2,926 incidents under this severe federal classification, resulting in just 82 arrests.

Code 26 acts as a catch-all for several distinct local crimes. It covers Criminal Trespass (9,444 incidents), Kidnapping (176 incidents), and Offense Involving Children (85 incidents).

Administrative and Obscenity Codes

Not all FBI codes deal with violence or property loss. Some track societal and administrative violations.

Code 17 covers Obscenity, a relatively rare charge in modern policing. The data shows just 39 incidents and 11 arrests.

Code 08A also captures a broad category called Other Offense, which logged 5,469 incidents but only 45 arrests. These ambiguous categories often serve as holding bins for initial reports before detectives reclassify them into specific felony or misdemeanor tracks.

Analyzing the Extremes: Homicide and Human Trafficking

To understand the full spectrum of chicago assault reports and violent crime, you have to look at the extremes of the data.

Homicide is the most resource-intensive crime a department can investigate. With 840 incidents, it represents a fraction of a percent of total police calls. Yet, it commands dedicated detective bureaus and yields a 31.3% arrest rate—the highest among major non-officer-involved felonies.

At the other end of the spectrum is Human Trafficking. With only 33 reported incidents, it is one of the rarest primary types in the local data. The single arrest recorded (3.0%) reflects the reality that local patrol officers rarely close these cases; they are almost entirely handed off to federal task forces.

Quick Takeaways

• Property crime dominates volume: Theft is the most reported crime in Chicago with 98,853 incidents, followed closely by Battery at 63,608.
• Arrest rates for property crimes are in the single digits: Burglary clears at just 4.3%, and Robbery clears at 8.7%.
• Officer-involved offenses guarantee arrests: Concealed Carry License Violations result in an arrest 96.9% of the time, as they are discovered during direct police encounters.
• Federal vs. Local coding matters: Chicago reported 38,690 local assaults, but only 26,431 met the criteria for the FBI's 08A Assault severity code.
• Intimidation is the hardest charge to stick: With a 2.1% arrest rate, it is the least likely major offense to result in a suspect being detained.