Chicago Crime Report by Remya Kannan


Crime in Chicago

Crime in Chicago has been tracked by the Chicago Police Department’s Bureau of Records since the beginning of the 20th century.Chicago was responsible for nearly half of 2016’s increase in homicides in the US.As of 2017, Chicago’s homicide rate is significantly higher when compared to the larger American cities of New York and Los Angeles, but lower when compared to smaller American cities.


The importance of the dataset

  1. Chicago Crime Numbers have been in the media for all the wrong reasons.
  2. President widely used these numbers during his presidential campaign
  3. He still talks about it.
  4. These numbers are impacting the overall numbers of the country.



From the above time series plot, we observe that the crime rate in Chicago has decreased in 2016 when compared to 2012. There is a clear indication that crime numbers oncrease during the middle of the year mostly during the summer months and drops towards the end/starting of the year (winter months). Another interesting note is the arrest rate is lower compared to the number of crimes. Additionally, crimes distibuted over months would be interesting to look into.





The plot above shows the decrease in the arrest rate from 2012-2016!




The heatmap indicates the decrease in the number of arrests by more than half between 2012 and 2016 but the crimes have not reduced at the same rate.





From the above time plot we observe that the streets are the most common location for crimes to occur followed by apartments and residence.



Let us understand how crime numbers vary in some of these top crime locations





The number of crimes have significantly reduced in the top crime locations.





Taking a look at the popular crimes, theft is the topmost followed by battery, narcotics and criminal damage.



Let us see how crime numbers vary in top crimes





From the above pllot we observe that the number of narcotics crimes have reduced and the number of thefts and battery crimes have remained the same.



How big is the increase in homicides in Chicago?





There is a significant increase in the number of homicides in Chicago in 2016 compared to previous years. However, there is very little development on the reasons for the increase in the number. Being one of the biggest cities, Chicago does have an impact on the overall crime numbers of the country. Hence the talk about crime even though a lot of other smaller cities have bigger crime rates.