Community Post

CD Scanner – 7/16

From July 16th, 2008

0 thoughts on “CD Scanner – 7/16

  1. I appreciate being able to see what’s happening around my home while I am at work. Sometimes it doesn’t make me feel better to read about the crime, but I would rather be informed. Your efforts go a long way with me. Thanks again.

  2. Due to some comments and information a few days ago, I looked at the crime maps. While it is interesting information, it would be even more so if it were presented in other formats besides the per square mile one. Per capita would be one of the other interesting presentations.

    In the current format most of the high crime areas appear to be the densest areas of the city. This, of course, makes sense. The more people you have in any one area the more likely a crime is going occur there with the area either containing a victim, a criminal or both. Distance plays a part in speed of services, but the number needed is likely to rise with population. I hope that the driving determination for the number of police assigned to an area is based on population numbers rather than amount of area.

    The current map along with per capita and population numbers and an outline of housing types would be helpful in planning and prevention. This would allow for a more reasoned discussion of how to spread density and housing types to create livable safe areas for all.

    I guess that there is also a bump in crime at some point as you pack people into one area, just due to having so many personalities interacting.

  3. I totally agree Joanna. I was thinking about pulling some census data to use with the reports that have number of incidents by census tract, but it’s now 2008 and the changes between 2000 to now… It’s just too painful to use the city’s website to pull data for each month of each year for each precinct. Anyway, the city has just hired a demographer. Maybe they could put something together along the lines you are suggesting.

    In the meantime, when I have the time I will at least create a more summary report on robbery data over the years for the different police precincts in Seattle along with ‘fuzzy’ population and household types numbers from the 2000 census (fuzzy because the numbers are 8 years old and some census tracts are covered by two police precincts). I would have to leave it to others to a: do the math to calculate ‘rates’, b: pull data for other kinds of crimes, or c: go to the detailed precinct level.

  4. I started to do my part to chip in, comparing tract 77 w/ 43 on total Pt 1 crimes for 2007 (Hoping to compare diff sets of tracts when time allowed.) But then when I was trying to find a population comparison I found this disturbing comment on the numbers: http://midbeaconhill.blogspot.com/2008/06/seattlegovs-neighb

    (BTW, for what it’s worth, Ravenna/Bryant beat tract 77 in 10 of 12 months in the comparison, sometimes double the numbers.)

  5. Hmmmnnn Well, it’s probably better to look at yearly numbers for a larger area and all class I crimes together. A specific murder in a city with so few murders (umm compared to Wash DC where they was and seems to still be a murder every 16 hours) does not give us enough to use to compare between areas. Speaking as someone who did statistical type stuff in the past…. But, the population and housing info is s significant piece, and that’s 8 years old. In 8 years, just on my block, we have drastic changes.