Crime On Campus

The local University of Oregon Police Department takes a record of all reported criminal instances that occur in and around the Eugene campus. The maps below are an illustration of crimes of Theft and Harassment only due to the high volume of crimes with these natures. Public facilities have also been included such as street lights and emergency call boxes. The four maps below are an attempt to examine the locations of crime relative to these ‘safety’ features on the University of Oregon campus. Do they make a difference? Are the two correlated negatively or positively?

Q1: Why does it matter which datum your waypoints are created in?
In terms of any projection of the Earth or region on the Earth, datum is everything. The datum is your reference point from which a constant plane extends in all directions. The two most popular datums used to display North America are NAD83 and WGS84. If waypoints are created using a GPS unit with a reference datum that varies from the reference datum used for other layers of the same space on Earth, the points will be skewed. The absolute geographic coordinates will be slightly different and the locations of these points will be irrelevant.

Q2: What coordinate system are the campus layers in? What coordinate system were the .gpx files created in?
The campus layers are projected in NAD83 HARN StatePlane Oregon South (Lambert Conformal Conic) while the .gpx files were created using NAD83 as well.

 

Q3: What size buffer was used for the emergency call boxes? For what reason? What operation would you perform to find the amount of sidewalk that is neither lit nor adjacent to a emergency call box?
A buffer with 10 feet of radius was used to demarcate all emergency call boxes. 10 feet was chosen because this distance considers the entire width of the sidewalk immediately in front of the call box plus 2-3 feet in either direction down the sidewalk. Emergency call boxes were symbolized with two colors. Golden yellow implies that the call box is within the 30 foot radius of a street lamp and is thus visible. Dark red boxes are not visible by street lamps but are still ‘accessible’ in the sense that they are adjacent to a walking path.

Q4: Which areas seem adequately covered with both street lamps and call boxes? Which areas would you suggest the University install more of either?
Campus appears to be adequately lit in most areas on campus with the exception of one region East of the Knight Library and West of University Avenue. However, there is an emergency call box along this path and it appears that no crimes of Theft or Harassment have occurred here in the last year, according to the UOPD Crime Report data. Most Theft occurs in the center of campus and along both 13th Avenue and University Avenue, the majority of which are bicycle related. Concerning emergency call boxes, walking paths located North of 13th avenue and adjacent to Lawrence and Allen Hall could have more frequent call box locations. These areas have less light and thus a lesser sense of security for lonely walkers at night.

Q5: What are some issues observed in the available crime data? What compromises or judgement calls you have to make when entering data of this nature?
The shortcomings of crime report data lie in imprecise collection. Crime locations are identified with nominal values such as building names or the nearest cross street. This description is too general! Two crimes reported this year were located at ‘Erb Memorial Union’ which is a large structure with multiple sides and walking paths that circumvent it. Where exactly did the crime occur? SouthWest of the Fishbowl on University Avenue? Or maybe Northeast beside the roundabout on 13th Avenue. The point is that this is entirely unknown. Moreover, in order to join the crime ‘type’ and ‘location’ to the Campus Buildings layer, Building Centroids (or central points) were used as the corresponding Campus location of the crime. As a result, crime types are label the center of the buildings they occurred nearest to. Once again, the display of crime data is both imprecise and un-educational to both the audiences of campus walkers and campus planners.

Q6: What information would make the report more complete? Is there other data that would be valuable?
As discussed above, campus crime data needs greater precision. A possible solution is to equip each UOPD officer with a personal GPS unit and mandate that he/she record the coordinates at the scene of the report. The crime data could then be coded with accurate geographic coordinates. In regards to my own work, greater attention could have been given to my symbology of lit and obscured emergency call boxes to call greater attention to where they are and where they are not (more significant). Also, as a .jpg file, these maps have less resolution than they could in order to conspicuously display public safety features in relation to pedestrian paths.