The human side of statistics: two crime-mapping websites
I’m intrigued by the complexity of presenting statistics on a map, and in my research I’ve come across two compelling but different approaches to mapping crime data: Oakland Crimespotting and the LA Times Homicide Map.
Created by Stamen Design, Oakland Crimespotting uses data from CrimeWatch, Oakland’s community mapping website. Crime reports are grouped by violent crimes, property crime, and “quality of life” crimes. Data on the map can be adjusted with a slider that is also a bar graph of recent crime reports.
A detail view (”Crime Reports”) offers more information about the nature of a crime and a close-up view of the location. You can also subscribe to an RSS feed for a specific geographic area.
The site puts crime information into the hands of the community, allowing residents to research and investigate patterns of activity, and to ask questions. As the site’s creators write, “As citizens we have a right to public information. A clear understanding of our environment is essential to an informed citizenry.”
Los Angeles Times Homicide Map
The LA Times Homicide Project by Jill Leovy combines homicide data from the LA County Coroner’s Office with original reporting. The filtering and user interface are stunning, and I can’t think of a better example of an information-rich data display.
Names and photos of the homicide victims are included next to the map. This humanizes the data in a powerful way, making it impossible to look at the map as just a warning about “dangerous” neighborhoods. There may be patterns to discover in the demographic and geographic information presented, but the tragic human side of the story makes it much more than just statistics. Sadly, new data (i.e. people) are added weekly.


