PROJECT 6: BALTIMORE CRIME
For my final project, I chose to analyze crime in Baltimore, which is the city that contains the largest crime incidents in the state of Maryland. My first visualization analyzes Baltimore’s top crime ridden neighborhoods over time. The years analyzed are from 2015-2018, which is largely due to the limitations in the dataset. As shown, neighborhoods such as Downtown and Frankford have the two highest number of incidents, and they remain as such throughout the years studied. As demonstrated overall, however, crime has not seemed to either significantly increase or decrease during these years (BPD Part 1, 2019). While Baltimore was not discussed in class in any capacity, I became interested in further studying it because of its reputation for being a crime-ridden city, as well as the fact that my fourth visualization showed very high gun incidents in the city.
​
The second visualization is a heat map of all crime locations that occurred between January 2015 and March 2019. It further corroborates the fact that downtown is one of the areas with the highest number of incidents, but it also shows where there is less crime throughout the city. Interestingly, the data shows however that there are patches in various neighborhoods that have not either experienced a significant amount of crime, or it is not noted in the dataset (BPD Part 1, 2019).
​
The third visualization shows the crime breakdown in Baltimore from January 2015 to March 2019. As demonstrated by the data, larceny, common assault, and burglary are the three largest types of crimes in the city. These are all broken down further showing whether the crime took place inside or outside as well. This was particularly interesting given that some crimes took place in unexpected locations (BPD Part 1, 2019).
​
Interestingly, my findings in the first visual, Crime over Time, do not align with the article “Violent Crime Rates Spike in Baltimore since 2015 Death of Freddie Gray” (Violent crime rates, 2019). While, inevitably, it is worth noting that the article is only discussing violent crime, compared to all types of crime, one would have expected to see a spike that was prevalent in my first visualization. There was a large spike in Brooklyn, however, this is not evident in the other neighborhoods (BPD Part 1). Therefore, the article and the data do not seem to equate, and are worth investigating further.
​
References
BPD part 1 victim based crime data. (2019, April 23). Retrieved from Open Baltimore website: https://data.baltimorecity.gov/Public-Safety/BPD-Part-1-Victim-Based-Crime-Data/wsfq-mvij
​
Violent crime rates spike in Baltimore since 2015 death of Freddie Gray. (2019, March 18). Retrieved from CBS News website: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/violent-crime-rate-spikes-baltimore-freddie-gray-death-police-custody-2015/