Reference no: EM133781556

Assignment:

Tactical Crime Analysis with Mapping

Purpose & Audience. Our aim for this lab is to produce an analytic report that helps to drive law enforcement practices within a particular police administrative area (e.g., a single LAPD Division).

Our audience mainly include commanders, managers, and supervisors within police divisions (in our data), precincts or districts (in other places). As you will see below, our audience changes depending on the specific analytical product we are working on.

We will also apply mapping and spatial analysis techniques in this lab. Integrate maps to support other analyses, as we have emphasized in the course material.

We will want to make use of the slicers (i.e. dynamic filters) because we want the products to act as dashboard tools that our audience can work with. In certain places, we want to give them at least some flexibility to change the data to suit their particular needs.

Organizational Context. You will start by selecting a LAPD Division to be your focus for this report. LAPD divides the city organizationally into 21 police areas (e.g. Hollenbeck, North Hollywood) led by a division commander. All the analyses will be conducted within the area you choose (so you can set a report level filter (i.e. filter on all pages) to your area (using the AREA NAME field).

Time Context. Our data end with same end date we have been working with. The start date (meaning the earliest date) for this report will depend on the type of analysis and the situations, as we have learned in our course. For example, a different window would be used for the overview dashboard, than for serial incident analysis and repeat incident analysis. Different results (due to different divisions or crime type choices) would lead to different windows for individual students as well. As such, you must apply some judgment to the way you analyze the data.

Interpretations. For this assignment you will create a separate document to outline some key findings or interpretations. These should be in brief bullet points. Think of them as your notes to provide to your audience about what they should take away from each section as you show them the tool or they work with it. What do you want them to see as they navigate it? For example, in the overview, you might highlight specific areas of concern based on temporal patterns. For the repeat incident analysis, note the specific locations that need attention or other observations you see. For serial incident analysis it is important to provide some human judgment about the final pool of incidents that appear connected in the analysis.

Section 1: Police Division Crime Overview Dashboard

Create a one or two pages that provides an overview of crime within your police division. Generally, our aim here is to provide background about the nature of crime and temporal trends within the division to set the stage for more analyses that follow. You'll want to use slicers for certain comparisons so that your audience change the visualizations as they see fit. Some guiding questions include:

• What is the total number of crimes in the division during the analysis period? What crimes occur most frequently in the police division during the analysis?
• What are the temporal trends of crime within the precinct? What are the trends for specific types of crime of interest?
• How does the frequency of crime vary across the reporting districts? What are the YTD changes for reporting districts?
• Add map(s) to help illustrate the patterns we see forming. Make sure to consider the right kind of map to match the analysis.

Section 2: Repeat-Incident Analysis Dashboard

• Create a page that acts as a repeat-incident analysis dashboard. Select a crime type to focus on that seems relevant for repeat incident analysis within the division.
• Conduct a repeat-incident location analysis to identify the addresses with multiple events.
• Create supporting tables of incidents that interact with the address analysis table.
• Add maps that support the above analyses by visualizing locations. Be sure to consider the best map type for specific locations or addresses.
• Add in concentration of crime statistics, such as the percentage of incidents at repeat locations.

Be sure to filter and format the dashboard so that it works as a tool for your audience.

Section 3: Serial Incidents Dashboard

Apply the guided serial incident analysis technique to develop a list of incidents that have a higher likelihood of being linked by the same offender. Remember, our audience for this kind of tactical analysis is mainly detectives who would be interested in possible links.

The guided serial incident analysis technique is outlined in our course materials. Remember that it starts by constraining a list of incidents by time and by physical distance, using our buffer zone technique.

Section 4: Weekly Crime Bulletin Dashboard

Create a single page to give a quick picture of crime occurring in the last full week of the data. Here street-level officers become our primary focus. They'll have access and interest in the above information form prior sections, but we now focus on the more immediate period and lowest level of the organization.

What crimes are occurring? When are they occurring? What are the characteristics of these crimes?

Set up visuals and make use of slicers to allow your officers to select the context they the desire. For example, officers work in particular reporting districts within your division and would be interested in toggling to their specific work context.

Be creative on this page but remember the aim. Providing officers with information about the context in which they work on a very regular, weekly basis.