This dataset shows the crime incidents that have occurred in Los Angeles from 2010 to now. The dataset was constructed by the Los Angeles Police Department presenting 26 columns of information on the crimes committed. A lot of the data is described in codes so it would make most sense to police and anyone that understands crimes and descriptions of the crimes such as weapons, status, MO’s, and etc. in codes. This dataset would be most useful for people trying to collect data on average outbursts of crimes or the most common misdemeanors in Los Angeles, but would mostly help police officers. I imagine it could also be pretty convenient and helpful for disciplinary groups because they could learn what areas of crime need to be focused on in order to prevent the numbers from rising. There are 1.61M rows of crimes just within the Los Angeles area presented in this dataset which goes to show you why America has the highest incarceration rate in the country, although this include 7 years of data. Two of the columns are labeled the status code and the description, although the only thing it shows is the default of IC or invest content, so I think it would be more beneficial to see how many of these criminals have been caught or how many crimes are still being investigated. It would be interesting to be able to visually see how many criminals go clean handed and how many do not. Another thing that was not presented was the criminal description if they were witnessed or caught. It could be intentionally left out though in order to avoid any racial controversy.
If I started over with this collection I would make it easier for the public to understand. It would describe the crime without using code and it would be designed to bring awareness to what is going on in our area. It would need to have a clear statement of whether the criminal was caught or not, and if not it would state any descriptions of potential suspects. Having a description of not only the victim but offender could be seen as a bad thing between races but might also be a good thing. It could remove some of the stereotypes that are seen within only certain races and prove felons exist within each and every race. It would be hard to write the ontology from anyone but a police’s perspective because they are probably the best bet in a least bias opinion and they have access to each file, but if it were to be written in someone else’s perspective I would make it in the victims.
I did the same dataset, but I did not think about why the dataset doesn’t have the perpetrator’s information like age, sex, descent. You bring up a really good point that there could be racial profiling if the perpetrator’s info was put in, but that it could also be a good thing as it would remove stereotypes that only certain races commit large part of the crimes and that criminals and felons exist within each and every race and is not concentrated into a select few minority.
Hi Katelyn,
I like that you want to use the data for the purposes of social and racial justice, and the good of the general public. Although this dataset is huge, it would be awesome to see some of the additions that you mentioned: such as whether the criminal was caught or if the investigation is still ongoing.
Hey katelyn,
I found great interest in this dataset. That being said, it really was hard to understand what the codes meant unless of course you worked in that line of field. I agree with you about specifying what the code meant in the real world to an average civilian, that way this information would better serve anybody looking for this data.
Hi there! I also choose to do my week 3 blog post on crime data! I agree that it would be useful to know the status of the cases. Also, I get what you are saying that the public might have a difficult time understanding that data. Having information such as the race of the offender might cause stereotypes to be reinforced, but I feel like it is needed to have more accurate information about the criminal records.
Great in-depth blog post! This dataset is quite vast and includes a relatively large timespan (starting in 2007). It is pretty scary to think since then, over 1 million crimes have been committed. I definitely agree that this dataset is targeted more toward police officers rather than the general public. It is quite difficult to make sense of the crimes presented in it. I wonder if there is a reason for that. Maybe the city does not want the public to ACTUALLY know how much and what crime is going on.