It was announced last week that the Baltimore Police Department is planning on redrawing its districts for the first time since 1959.
Although exact population stats are hard to find, when the current 9 districts were drawn in 1959, they all contained roughly equal population (or to be more accurate they were called “more nearly even” relative to the prior districts – see the Baltimore Sun article “Station Sites Talked Over” from March 1, 1956).
Since 1959, changes in population within the city have led to huge population disparities among the districts, as you can see below, where 2020 census data is aggregated to each district.
As the total 2020 census population for Baltimore was 585,708, an equal population split of the city would result in 9 districts with 65,078 people each, give or take a person. On the current plan, the Northeastern District covers 122,022 people and the Eastern District only 33,546.
As the current districts were drawn on slightly different geographies than those of 2020 census blocks, the below totals are calculated by intersecting each block with a shapefile of police districts. If parts of a block are within two or more different districts, the population within the block is assigned to the district containing the largest portion of its area.
Also of interest may be the racial demographics of the various police districts, which can be seen below.
