Below you can find our visualizations for Questions 4, 5, and 6, along with our takeaways from them.
Populations for each LAPD District were calculated using LAPD Online's population estimates or the sum of the most recent census reports from each neighborhood under the station's jurisdiction.
These neighborhoods are located in the southern and central areas of Los Angeles, which are well known for their homelessness rates and history of gang violence. Overall, all three of these neighborhoods are much more violent compared to the rest of LA, and visitors should exercise caution in these areas.
This suggests that crime in Hollywood could occur in a more random, spontaneous context as opposed to targeted hits among rivaling gangs. Perhaps solo criminals in Hollywood take advantage of the neighborhood's influx of tourists.
The homelessness crisis across the city, along with the broad legal definition of assaults/batteries that includes many different types of physical attacks, may contribute to these higher rates.
According to the latest Census estimates, Los Angeles' racial breakdown consists of the following
This makes sense, as they comprise the majority of the population. However, with them being the most populous, it is only natural that they would make up a significant portion of the criminals themselves, indicating that a lot of crime is Latino-on-Latino.
Black people are the second-most targeted group for each of the crimes considered with the exception of sexual assault (for which they are still significantly affected). However, for murders, the figure for Black people is significantly higher. This most likely reflects the prevalence of gang violence, as Blacks and Latinos comprise most of the murder victims and their numbers are more or less evenly split.
White people make up approximately 28% percent of the population of Los Angeles, yet for each of the four crime types analyzed, they make up a significantly lower percentage of the victims. This suggests that white privilege does exist in some form in Los Angeles, especially when you consider their 8.7% of murder victims to 41.9% of Black murder victims, despite there being more than twice as many White residents than Black residents in the city. While this isn’t necessarily an actionable observation, it is important to be mindful of.
The COVID-19 pandemic undoubtedly had an influence on monthly crime totals from 2020-2021. For reference, this article gives a helpful timeline of developments in California’s response to the virus. The totals for January and February 2020 are relatively low, but the figure drops significantly in March and April during the first weeks of the pandemic. It is easy to see why the stay-at-home mandate reduced criminal activity during the lockdown.
Since 2022 is the only year in which the pandemic was not a factor, it gives us the most accurate monthly crime trends. Although crime levels do not vary much, there is noticeably more crime in the middle months - with May, June, and October having the most - compared to the beginning and end of the year.
Even though February is the shortest month, it still has considerably less crime than other months - even adjusting for the difference in days. February 2020 is an irrelevant exception because the pandemic began the following month.