Crime Analysis in Tucson: Violence and Vulnerability
Presentation Time: Thu, 08/04/2022 - 15:00
Keywords: Tucson, neighborhood vulnerability, violent crime, spatial correlation, police
Crime throughout the Tucson city area reaches into the six figures every year. Over ten percent of this crime is considered to be violent: murder, aggravated assault, rape, and robbery. It is a widely accepted belief that violent crime is a factor of vulnerability in a neighborhood and can be found in conjunction with certain socioeconomic factors. In 2020, a study conducted through the University of Arizona and the City of Tucson determined that there are five major socioeconomic factors that determine vulnerability of a neighborhood. These factors did not include crime and this study incorporates the presence of those factors and violent crime statistics in a neighborhood to determine whether vulnerable neighborhoods are also victim to violent crime. The analysis consists of City of Tucson crime reports between 2019 and 2021, spanning the time before and after the study was accomplished to show that neighborhood vulnerability factors and violent crime are statistically significant to each other. Using various spatial autocorrelation and regression analysis functions within ESRI ArcGIS Pro, violent crime can be associated with almost all factors of what is considered a vulnerable neighborhood. Analyses conducted include Kernel Density, Average Nearest Neighbor, Optimized Hot Spot Analysis, Geographically Weighted Regression, and Global Moran’s I. The results will be able to assist the City of Tucson with furthering their efforts to prevent violent crime throughout the city and aid the neighborhoods that need the most help.
