Crime Mapping in Los Angeles

This displays both the overall crime that happens in Los Angeles and a concentration on "Stolen Vehicle" crime in Los Angeles

RRH 1015365

Introduction

Los Angeles

Los Angeles is a city in southern California which is home to the nation's film and entertainment industry. It is the most populated city in California and second most populous in the USA with a population of 3.849 million people (2021).

Los Angeles has a violent crime rate of 29.1 compared to the United State's 22.7 - that is a 28% increase in violent crime in LA compared to the overall US violent crime rate. The property crime rate in LA is actually lower (35.1) than the US property crime rate (35.4).

Los Angeles is the 8th most diverse city in the United States of America. More than 90 languages are spoken and 20 different religions are practiced in this city.

Los Angeles Project

Our map shows different ways to display the crime data locations and density with pop-ups that provided a detailed view on the specific crime(s).

Our dashboard helps display information regarding the crimes in an interactive and intuitive manner. The different elements such as charts, indicators, and maps help bring the data of different crimes and their affiliations to locations to life.

Map

 

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The location map indicates each and every individual vehicle stolen on its specific location with a red car. So, there are around 2028 dots on the map each individually indicating the location to where the vehicle was stolen. Each pop up, if clicked, provides more detail about the crime.

The cluster map groups the location points within a certain distance into one symbol so we can see the pattern in the data. Smaller clusters have fewer location points of vehicle stolen and larger clusters have more location points of vehicle stolen.

The heat map displays the density of the vehicle stolen location points by using a color scheme. The cool colors usually indicate less, sparse density in the area, while warm colors indicate high density in the area.

The mean (green) of this heat map indicates the average of all the crimes in the Los Angeles area.

The central feature (blue) of this heat map indicates the center of the Los Angeles boundary.

The directional distribution (purple ellipse) of this heat map shows the standard deviation horizontally from the mean of the map.

The hot spot map shows the high and low points of the crime cluster in a spatial manner. It utilizes different levels of confidence. Cooler colors indicate high confidence is a cold spot of crimes, while warmer colors indicate high confidence in hot spots of crimes.

The census tract map method counts the number of points within each boundary’s area and utilizes a mix of the location points and the census tracts of the city to then assigns the calculated points to the specific polygon area. The purple circles indicate the crimes in those specific census blocks.

Dashboard

ArcGIS Dashboards

In this dashboard, we can see different crime data either in the form of an indicators, graphs, and map.

Depending on what you select in the "Select an Area of Los Angeles", the indicator data and the map changes to reflect that area and when it's at "None", it is all of LA. The indicators show the pickpocketing numbers, child abuse numbers, and Trespassing numbers in June 2022. There's also an indicator for the total crime in the specific areas.

The "theft" bar graph divides multiple type of thefts such as identity theft, embezzlement, shoplifting, etc. by the areas in Los Angeles. It is in ascending order to by which area of LA has more thefts to indicate which area is safer than the other. The slider helps zoom into specific bar graphs, so you can see the the data at a more magnified scale.

The "assault" graph bar divides the number of reports of multiple types of assault crimes such as child abuse, partner abuse, police assault, etc. by the different types of assaults. It shows which types of assaults are more prevalent in Los Angeles. The slider helps zoom into specific bar graphs, so you can see the the data at a more magnified scale.

The "stolen items" bar graph divides the number of reports on stolen items by the items that are stolen such as vehicle, boat, bike, motorized scooters/wheelchairs, and stolen attempts. It shows which vehicle is more likely to be stolen in Los Angeles and which would be the most safest to travel with. The slider helps zoom into specific bar graphs, so you can see the the data at a more magnified scale.

The "homicide" graph is a circle graph that shows reported homicide divided by the classified sex of the victim of the homicide. Males are clearly more victims of homicide than females.

Conclusion

I believe that cluster is the best way to visualize the crime. It not only tells you the number of features (crimes) in a specific cluster that has been bunched but it also leaves points that couldn’t be clustered untouched, so you have a cleaner look to your map, without the chaos of multiple points overlapping, while also seeing where crime numbers are high and low.