INTRO

For my final project I will be looking at the crime rates within Chicago and LA city limits. I downloaded data from multiple platforms, but predominantly we will be looking at hate crimes and homicides. I gathered my data from https://crime-data-explorer.fr.cloud.gov/pages/explorer/crime/hate-crime and https://home.chicagopolice.org/statistics-data/data-dashboards/hate-crime-dashboard/ https://data.lacity.org/Public-Safety/Crime-Data-from-2010-to-2019/63jg-8b9z which are all government regulated sources for data. I am curious to see how crime and crime rates shift throughout the years.

DATA

As I mentioned in the introduction, I did gather data from different sources. The data I collected from the FBI for my final chart was manually inputted to excel and then transferred into Tableau as a CSV file. All other data was downloaded directly from the Chicago PD database website, LA public data, and the FBI website.

HYPOTHESIS

After browsing the data sets, I believe that there will be an increase in hate-crimes during the years of 2016 and 2019. Election years can bring out the most violent and hateful versions of people, especially when there is political unrest. I also believe that murder rates will spike, especially during the year of 2016. I would say that I expect to see a spike in homicide and crime rates during 2020, however there was a global pandemic going on during this time which might prohibit people from being able to murder. For this reason, I am hypothesizing that murder and crime rates during 2020 will decrease.

YEAR/HOMICIDE BAR CHART CHICAGO

In this bar chart with data from the FBI, we can see the year on the y-axis and the number of homicides in the city of Chicago per year on the x-axis. We see clear jumps in the data around 2016 and 2020. Surprisingly, 2020 has the highest homicide rate in Chicago with 791 murders and trailing behind it, is 2016 with 788 murders. It is shocking to see such a high number of murders during a year when most people were quarantined, especially after there were 505 murders in 2019, which is significantly less than 791. https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2020/12/31/22208002/chicago-murders-2020-skyrocket-crime-violence-cpd-homicides According to this article from the Chicago Sun Times, the skyrocket in murders can be attributed to racial injustice and social unrest.

CHICAGO MURDER 2020

This map shows the location and description of each murder in the city of Chicago during 2020. There are clear clusters on the North-West side of Chicago near Cicero and this cluster has stayed relatively consistent throughout the past 20 years. We also see a cluster that has formed near the South-East side.

CHICAGO MURDER 2001-2021

This interactive map shows each murder by location and description from year 2001 through collected data in 2021. Over the years we see the murder cluster on the North-West side of Chicago stay in tact.

CHICAGO CRIME MAP BY TYPE

This map shows the crimes in Chicago by location and type of crime in 2016. Assault, Battery, and Theft are by far the most common crimes across the city of Chicago during this year.

YEAR AND HATE CRIME # IN CHICAGO

This line graph shows the the number of hate crimes in Chicago from the year 2012 until 2021. Surprisingly, 2019 is the year we see the most hate crimes in Chicago with 98. 2020 is a close second with 80 hate crimes. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/u-s-hate-crimes-20-percent-2016-fueled-election-campaign-n733306 According to this article from NBC.com, there is a significant increase in hate crimes nationally, specifically in urban cities. During the year of 2016 we see a clear spike in Chicago hate crimes. These crimes slightly and temporarily drop in 2017, and from there they increase steadily. So far 2020 and 2021 are very close in number, however it is important to note that the 2021 year is not over so there could potentially be more hate crimes before the data is technically complete.

HATE CRIME TYPE BY OCCURENCE IN CHICAGO

This pie chart shows the groups which hate crimes have been geared towards in the past 10 years (2010-2020). 25% of hate crimes in Chicago have been geared towards Black Americans and 24% have been geared towards gay men. The third most targeted group is the Jewish community with 11% of the hate crimes being anti-Semitic. These hate crimes could be related to the Presidential election, as ABC writes that targeted violence increases around election time. https://wjla.com/news/nation-world/targeted-violence-increases-around-presidential-elections-researcher Donald Trump, the U.S. president from 2016-2020 has been openly racist calling white-supremacists at the Charlottesville riots “very fine people” and his V.P. Mike Pence has openly endorsed shock conversion therapy for the LGPTQ community. Perhaps American hate crimes geared towards these communities increased during their presidency because of the standard that both of these men set.

LA HATE CRIME VICTIMS BY RACE

In this map, the data from the LA open data portal shows that from years 2010-2021, Hispanics have been the primary target in this city for hate crimes. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/rise-hate-crimes-against-latinos-pushes-overall-number-highest-over-n1247932 according to this NBC article, hate crimes towards the Hispanic/Latino community have risen drastically in recent years.

LA CRIME YEAR AND COUNT

In this map, we see all crimes committed in LA from 2010 through 2021. Unlike Chicago, LA has dips in crime during election years.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, my hypothesis was partially correct. The murder rate, and other crime rates did spike in Chicago during 2016 and fell in 2020 in LA. What I did not expect was the Chicago crime rate to increase in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. LA sees drops in these years which is interesting. However unexpected, I think it’s reasonable to assume that racial and social injustice fueled a lot of crime in Chicago during this year. Perhaps the same social justice initiatives happened in LA, but in the form of peaceful protests as opposed to crime and looting.