Crime and Population
Police Coverage in Las Vegas
Over the last century, Las Vegas and the greater Clark County Nevada, has experienced a significant population growth. Home to less than 5,000 people in 1920, there were nearly 2.5 million residents by 2020, with roughly 25% arriving in the last decade alone. Such rapid growth places strain on a communities essential infrastructure, from housing, utilities, and schools, to healthcare, and emergency response facilities.
This study examines the current police infrastructure to determine if the Las Vegas Metro Police Department (LVMPD) is able to adequately serve the existing population and identifies areas for improvement to better serve the community in the future
ArcGIS Pro for data preparation, spatial analysis, and visualization.
Police response time windows - 5 and 10 minutes intervals
To validate the visibility claims from the summit of Mount Constitution, a systematic GIS-based workflow was employed:
To understand crime potential, key socio-economic indicators were analyzed across census tracts within Clark County:
Two aspects of police data were evaluated:
In order to better compare each census tract, each indicator was ranked on a 1-5 scale, with lower numbers suggesting a higher crime potential.
These indicators were then assigned a weight and added together to create a consolidated score for each census tract.
Although it's not inclusive of every factor that can lead to why some areas see more crime than others, and despite only looking at a singular 30-day period of LVMPD calls for service, there is enough data available to make some determinations.
Overlaying the driving times on top of the weighted results shows a handful of census tract areas that have a high potential for crime, partially due to how far away they are from existing stations.
By comparing the gaps in the LVMPD coverage area and the weighted results, there are 3 locations that are prime for the addition of additional police stations.
It's always a good idea to look back over a project and think about what could be done differently. In this project, I came up with two things that could be redone if I were to redo this again.
A 30-day history of police dispatches is a great snapshot in time, but ignores seasonal variations. Instead, a 12-month lookback would include the changes brought about by fluctuations in tourism, as well as accounting for the summer days where temperatures are deep into the triple digits and winter nights where they dip below freezing.
The three socio-economic factors used (population density, educational attainment, and poverty level) are all assumed to be factors that lead to crime. No research was conducted to validate that claim, or to identify what other factors might correlate more. While it won't change the techniques used, having a more accurate understanding of the socio-economic elements behind crime could lead to more accurate results.