Paris Crime Map & Local Safety

Safety Is Your Right

In France, the right to personal safety is protected by the Constitution of the Fifth Republic, the Civil Code’s obligation de sécurité, and the Code de la sécurité intérieure. For anyone moving through Paris — residents, commuters, or newcomers evaluating where to live — this right extends to the streets, transport corridors, and public spaces that shape daily routines. Paris’s administrative boundaries are broad and internally diverse, and conditions can vary significantly even within the same arrondissement. This platform uses official crime statistics published by the Ministry of the Interior (SSMSI) to provide a structured, data‑driven view of recorded incidents across the city.

Understanding Safety Across Paris Through Data

This independent analytical project provides view of public‑space crime patterns across Paris using official SSMSI data published under the Licence Ouverte / Etalab. Crime levels in Paris vary sharply between areas, and these differences often appear even between adjacent streets. The purpose of this platform is to make those spatial contrasts visible and comparable through a consistent analytical framework — a tool for anyone assessing neighbourhood conditions when choosing where to rent, buy, or plan daily movement.

While official police datasets are transparent and valuable, they are published only at the arrondissement level. This aggregation makes it difficult to understand how crime varies within smaller neighbourhood units or how exposure changes from one part of an arrondissement to another. This project addresses those limitations by applying a uniform analytical model focused on comparability and spatial distribution.

Why Existing Police Maps Are Not Enough

Official crime maps in France are not designed for fine‑grained spatial analysis. Arrondissement‑level statistics can mask internal variation, while small but high‑intensity zones may appear indistinguishable when only total counts are shown. In addition, French police do not publish point‑level coordinates due to strict privacy protections under EU and national law.

Although modern open data is limited to arrondissement‑level reporting, the Préfecture de Police historically maintained — and still maintains internally — far more detailed neighbourhood‑scale records. On rare occasions, up to 2010, the Ministry of the Interior published crime information for all 121 conseils de quartier. These archival releases illustrate the level of spatial detail that exists internally, even though current public datasets are aggregated.

As a concrete example of this finer spatial resolution, a dedicated page presents the official 2005 ONDRP map of sexual‑violence incidents reconstructed at the level of all 121 conseils de quartier: Paris 2005 Sexual‑Violence Map. While the spatial granularity matches the original publication, the reconstruction applies a modern analytical step — normalising incident counts by quartier surface area — which makes the historical data comparable across zones and more suitable for interpreting relative concentration patterns.

Local Crime Level Across the 20 Arrondissements

Paris is divided into 20 administrative arrondissements. For each arrondissement, recorded incidents from the SSMSI dataset are aggregated and weighted by severity to produce a Local Crime Level — a density‑based indicator reflecting the relative concentration of public‑space offences.

The model includes offences most relevant to public‑space exposure. Each offence type is assigned a severity coefficient (1–10) based on an independent analytical model reflecting relative seriousness. These coefficients are not official ratings but author‑defined parameters used to introduce a severity dimension into the analysis. Normalising incident counts by surface area allows meaningful comparison between arrondissements of different sizes and reveals spatial differences not visible in raw totals.

How to Use the Map

The interactive map allows users to explore spatial patterns of recorded crime across Paris. Each arrondissement can be selected to view underlying SSMSI incident counts and the resulting Local Crime Level indicator. Filters allow users to isolate specific offence categories and observe how different types of crime are distributed across the city.

Hotel markers are included solely for spatial reference. The map does not label any location as safe or unsafe — it provides a comparative analytical view of recorded crime distribution to support independent interpretation when evaluating neighbourhoods for living, renting, or everyday movement.

Transparent & Lawful

All information is sourced from official French government datasets published by the Ministry of the Interior (SSMSI) under the Licence Ouverte / Etalab. Only recorded incidents with published arrondissement‑level data are included. No private, commercial, or non‑governmental data sources are used.

The methodology — including offence selection, severity weighting, normalisation and aggregation — is documented in detail on the Legal & Methodology page. Data handling complies with the CRPA, CADA Law, and relevant guidance on the reuse of public‑sector information.

Comprehensive Disclaimer

This platform visualises historical police‑recorded data and does not provide real‑time monitoring, predictions, or guarantees of safety. Local Crime Level values are comparative indicators and must not be interpreted as absolute measures of risk. Lower values do not guarantee safety, and higher values do not imply that incidents will occur.

The map is intended as an analytical tool to support spatial awareness and comparative analysis. Users remain responsible for their own decisions regarding movement, accommodation, and long‑term residential choices. It should be used alongside other sources of information and local context.