Carolina Data Challenge

With the worry of crime rate rising in Chapel Hill, we decided to take a look at how the data on Chapel Hill crime and police data can be manipulated to produce interesting visualizations on crime in Chapel Hill. 

We analyzed this data set primarily from the years of 2016-2019, in order to work with a smaller, more recent set of data. As seen throughout the Tableau story, there are questions that we have answered pertaining to which gender and age group gets targeted more, and what specifically affects females. Understanding female victim data is especially important to us, in order to bring awareness to various incidences that they may face on campus.

Although further conclusive answers would need to be made on this data, there is a need to pay attention to crime throughout Chapel Hill. Female victims of crime have been increasing specifically around months when classes are in session, increasing in the months of August to May, and dropping in November and December, as well as summer months. 

One flaw of this data is that the time of when the incidence took place is not given. With the time, other questions can be asked regarding when it is safe for students (especially females) to go out on campus. Additionally, in order to visualize substantial data on assault, it was necessary to group keywords of “r*pe” and “assault” together to relate the nature of the crime. As police file incidents under certain names, grouping the distinction uncovered a larger presence of assault on females around Chapel Hill. By tackling these issues of time and incidence name, safety can be improved on campus through effective Alert Carolina responses and messages to students. 

Tools and technologies used: Data.world, Microsoft Excel, Tableau