Analysis of Anchorage Crime Data with Tableau
I recently got my first taste of Tableau in a data analytics class. When choosing a dataset to practice creating visualizations in, I wanted to choose publicly available data released in my home state of Alaska. In the end, I went with the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting data for Anchorage. The dataset itself is fairly small, with columns to track the cleared (solved) and reported violent and property crime across each year. For anyone interested in playing with it yourself, it can be found here, and my first impression of Tableau can be found here.
First Glance
As shown above, property crime has fluctuated over the last 30 years, with spikes in the mid 90’s and 2010’s. Violent crime, by comparison, has steadily increased and was double the original 1986 value in 2019. I found the discrepancy between the two interesting, and wanted to view the total amounts of reported and cleared cases over time for both violent and property crime. Specifically, I was curious to look at these changes during Ethan Burkowitz’s term as mayor.
Burkowitz was a Democratic mayor who served from 2015 to 2020. Alaska on the whole is regarded as a red state with Anchorage as a generally blue hotspot within it. As crime is a heavily utilized talking point for conservatives, I was curious to see what the data said about a democrat’s impact on crime in my hometown.
Burkowitz & Property Crime
We can see that property crime initially rose during Burkowitz’s term before falling back down. The number of cleared cases had some small shifts, going up and down with the number of reported cases. In 2019, the number of cleared cases fell significantly.
There are a couple of noteworthy comparisons here. In 2013 the amount of reported property crime was roughly the same as in 2019, but the clearance rate was much higher. The following year the number of reported property cases decreased slightly, but the number of cleared cases dropped sharply.
Overall, we can see that property crime spiked under the Burkowitz administration and began to fall back down. There are two instances where the amount of cleared cases dropped sharply, both in 2014 (prior to his term) and 2019. Let’s take a look at the same information for violent crime and see if the same patterns are replicated.
Burkowitz & Violent Crime
The trends in violent crime follow a markedly different pattern. There is an immediate increase in 2015, the year that Burkowitz took office, but we also see a much larger increase in cleared cases in response. Whereas property crime steadily grew towards a distinct peak in 2017 before sloping back down, violent crime remained high for the duration of his term — there is only a slight decrease in 2019. Compared to the year before Burkowitz took office, 2019 had a 37% increase in reported violent crime.
However, we can also see that the number of cleared cases increased significantly, reaching a peak in 2018. This is a stark difference from the property crime data, where the number of cleared cases only saw modest fluctuations.
Adding Some Context
We can see that crime increased while Ethan Burkowitz was mayor, but our data has given us a more nuanced view. Violent crime rose steadily since the early 2000’s and hit a peak in the mid 2010’s around the time Burkowitz took office, but the number of solved cases rose to new levels in response. Property crime hit a peak in 2017, but was sharply declining by the time Burkowitz was on his way out. Were there any changes in policy or environment at that time that could help explain these changes?
In the mid 2010’s, Anchorage saw a large spike in its drug and alcohol problem. The city has long had a history with drug abuse and alcoholism is common across the state as a whole. As then Chief of Police Justin Dole stated in an interview with Anchorage Daily News, tracing where specific packages of illicit drugs originated ranges from difficult to impossible (Hopkins, 2018). Wherever the drugs were trafficked form, we know that substance abuse rose dramatically. Compounded with the ongoing opioid epidemic, these changes were a driving force in the rapid increase in crime (Hopkins, 2018). As the number of heroin and meth addicts increased, so did the amount of theft they committed to fund their addiction (Hopkins, 2018).
Around the same time, a controversial justice reform bill titled SB-91 entered the scene. The goal of SB-91 was to cut costs by reducing the number of inmates behind bars without compromising public safety (Kelly et al., 2017). In theory, reducing the state’s numbers behind bars would save the state money, and directing more resources towards prevention would help lower crime. The policy was based on an an approach used in a number of other states, often with positive outcomes (Kelly et al., 2017). However, Burkowitz admits that this is not how it played out: penalties for nonviolent crime were reduced, but little was done to improve rehabilitation and prevention (Hopkins, 2018). The bill was ultimately short lived, being repealed by the next administration in 2018 (Brooks, 2019).
It’s difficult to say what the impact of SB-91 due to its brevity, but it is clear that it did have some impact. In the same interview as above, Justin Dole stated that the bill had a mixed effect on criminals. Some were aware of the lowered penalties for nonviolent crime and increased their criminal activity accordingly. Others, however, were unware of the change in legislation. They were driven to crime by their addiction regardless of what penalties would be imposed (Hopkins, 2018).
Final Thoughts
So what was Burkowitz’s role in all this? It’s hard to say. Its clear that both property and violent crime increased in Anchorage during his term. SB-91’s lowered penalties for nonviolent crime appears to have contributed to the rise in property crime. The increase in substance abuse may have played a bigger role, as crime as a whole grew rapidly. As the number of property crime cases grew, it seems that the police force struggled to meet the demand put upon them.
Overall, it appears that Burkowitz faced a difficult situation with the drastic rise in substance abuse, and did his best to act accordingly. One year before his term ended, the last year that this data was available, crime was higher than when he took office. However, we do see that the numbers had already peaked and were trending down. In addition, the number of cleared violent crime cases saw significant improvements compared to his predecessor. Things looked to be headed in the right direction as his term came to a close.
Alaska is one of the most dangerous states in the nation (Stebbins, 2020). It has high levels of violent crime and substance abuse, and continues to face questions of how to handle homelessness, public health needs, climate change, and resource management. Many pieces need to come together for state to work through its many challenges. I firmly believe that data is one of those pieces. Here’s to working towards a data-driven government, where objectivity and understanding matter more than simply speaking the loudest.
Happy coding.
Citations:
Brooks, J. (2019, May 29). Alaska Senate votes to repeal and replace most of SB 91, sending crime bill to governor’s desk. Anchorage Daily News. https://www.adn.com/politics/alaska-legislature/2019/05/29/alaska-senate-votes-to-repeal-and-replace-most-of-sb-91-sending-crime-bill-to-governors-desk/
Hopkins, K. (2018a, June 28). $45 million in property was stolen in Anchorage last year. This year is worse. Anchorage Daily News. https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/crime-courts/2018/06/28/after-a-record-year-for-property-crime-in-anchorage-car-thefts-are-skyrocketing-in-2018/
Hopkins, K. (2018b, July 26). ‘I don’t just hear it, I feel it’: A conversation about Anchorage crime with Mayor Berkowitz. Anchorage Daily News. https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/crime-courts/2018/07/26/what-happened-a-conversation-on-anchorage-crime-with-mayor-ethan-berkowitz/
Kelly, D., Boots, M., & Herz, N. (2017, October 21). How SB 91 has changed Alaska’s criminal justice system. Anchorage Daily News. https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/crime-courts/2017/10/21/how-sb-91-has-changed-alaskas-criminal-justice-system/
Stebbins, S. (2020, January 13). Dangerous states: Which states have the highest rates of violent crime and most murders? USA TODAY. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/01/13/most-dangerous-states-in-america-violent-crime-murder-rate/40968963/
