An attack by one person on another with the purpose of inflicting severe or grievous injury. Generally a weapon is involved, although it is possible to have an aggravated assault that does not include a weapon. Attempted homicide (e.g. a shooting that does not result in death) is classified as Aggravated Assault by the police in incident and arrest data.
On the Dashboard, this includes arrests and cases where the most serious charge (or police recommended charge) was any of the following:
On the Dashboard, this includes arrests and cases where the most serious charge (or police recommended charge) was one of:
On the Dashboard, this includes arrests and cases where the most serious charge (or police recommended charge) was one of:
On the Dashboard, this includes arrests and cases where the most serious charge (or police recommended charge) was one of:
An unsuccessful attempt by one person to kill another. On the Dashboard, only cases are classified as attempted homicide because the police, tend to classify these incidents aggravated assaults when aresting a person.
Attempted Murder are cases that are charged under one of the below homicide statutes, with an additional charge for attempt. The attempt charge is generaly refered to as an inchoate offense of Criminal Attempt (18 Pa.C.S. § 901).
On the Dashboard, this includes arrests and cases where the most serious charge (or police recommended charge) was any of the following:
A charge is an accusation by the Commonwealth that a person has committed a crime. Although a case often involves more than one charge, our Charge Report only looks at the most serious offense charged in each criminal case.
In Philadelphia, the DAO, not the police, is responsible for deciding whether to charge an individual. Generally speaking, police investigate a case and present their investigation to the DAO. The DAO then determines whether there is enough evidence to file criminal charges and what charges should be filed. It is common that a person is charged with multiple offenses in a single criminal case. For example, Simple Assault is often charged at the same time as Recklessly Endangering Another Person.The catchall category in our data for cases that are ‘dropped’ at some point in the process. Some common reasons a case can be dropped include:
A catchall offense where a person, with the intent to inconvenience, annoy, or alarm members of the public: fights, makes threats, makes loud noises, uses obscene language, or creates a public hazard while serving no purpose to the actor.
On the Dashboard, this includes arrests and cases where the most serious charge (or police recommended charge) was one of:
Some of the benefits of diversionary programs are:
Some common diversion programs in Philadelphia include:
The more precise definition is more complicated: A person has been exonerated if he or she was convicted of a crime and, following a post-conviction re-examination of the evidence in the case, was either:
The pardon, acquittal, or dismissal must have been the result, at least in part, of evidence of innocence that either:
Intentionally lying or manipulating the truth in order to gain something of value. It is common that when the police recommend that a person be charged with fraud, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office charges theft, which is more specific.
On the Dashboard, this includes arrests and cases where the most serious charge (or police recommended charge) was one of:
To calculate future years of incarceration, we make a few assumptions:
All of the years of supervision imposed on defendants in all cases that ended in a given time period. For example, the future years of supervision imposed in Philadelphia on a particular day can be calculated by adding up all of the probation and parole sentences imposed on all defendants in Philadelphia that day.
To calculate future years of supervision, we make a few assumptions:
Instead of going to trial, an accused person may choose to admit guilt and go directly to sentence. A guilty plea can be open or negotiated.
On the Dashboard, this includes arrests and cases where the most serious charge (or police recommended charge) was any of the following:
On the Dashboard, we only classify an arrest or case as a non-fatal shooting if the incident itself appears in the Shooting Victims data set and the most serious charge (or police recommended charge) was one of: “Attempted Homicide”, “Assault”, “Aggravated Assault”, or “Robbery”. On the Incidents page, we count the number of non-fatal shooting victims rather than the number of non-fatal shooting incidents.
Information about Non-Fatal Shootings only includes shooting victims since 2015. That means that only shooting incidents since 2015 are reflected in the reports (arrests, cases charged, outcomes, etc…). As an example, the Case Outcomes report shows very few cases resolved in 2015 and a very high rate of non-convictions. The reason for this is that very few shooting incidents that occured in 2015 were also resolved in 2015; those that were resolved that quickly were often quickly dismissed.On our case outcomes page, in addition to how many cases were disposed of in each time period, we also measure how many cases remained active at the end of each time period. This allows a comparison between the number of cases adjudicated in a year with the size of the backlog that the court was facing at that same moment. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the case backlog has grown considerably as the courts have not been operating at full capacity. Two important impacts of this are:
On the Dashboard, this includes arrests and cases where the most serious charge (or police recommended charge) was one of:
On the Dashboard, this includes arrests and cases where the most serious charge (or police recommended charge) was one of:
On the Dashboard, this includes arrests and cases where the most serious charge (or police recommended charge) was one of:
On the Dashboard, this includes arrests and cases where the most serious charge (or police recommended charge) was one of:
These are all defined elsewhere on this page:
As part of the UCR program, offense types are divided into three categories:
On the Dashboard, this includes arrests and cases where the most serious charge (or police recommended charge) was any of:
On the Dashboard, this includes arrests and cases where the most serious charge (or police recommended charge) was any of:
On the Dashboard, this includes arrests and cases where the most serious charge (or police recommended charge) was one of:
On the Dashboard, this includes arrests and cases where the most serious charge (or police recommended charge) was any of:
On the Dashboard, this includes arrests and cases where the most serious charge (or police recommended charge) was one of:
There are times when withdrawing a case can better serve the goals of the criminal legal system than continuing to prosecute a case.
Some examples of why a case may be withdrawn in the interest of justice include: