Data.gov released crime data for Los Angeles from 2020–2022. The data has 28 variables and 637,793 observations.

The analysis has three levels of focus. The first focus is a high-level view of the crime committed in Los Angeles and the twenty-one police districts. The second analysis examines misdemeanor crime in the district with the highest occurrence of the crime. The third level focuses on covid and how covid impacted the misdemeanor crime selected for analysis. The main objective and the purpose of the analysis is to look at the data for signs of juking the stats by the Los Angeles Police Department.

WHAT IS JUKING THE STATS?

Juking the stats in education and police department statistics was a key narrative in the television show The Wire. The premise is that the political leadership in Baltimore applies pressure on Baltimore schools and the police department to increase test scores and to bring crime down while failing to allocate the necessary resources for educators, police officers and investigative units to adequately do their jobs. To generate the required results, schools and the police department turn to juking the to increase test scores and decrease crime. Juking the stats is described in this scene.

LOS ANGELES CRIME DATA

According to the data.gov website, the data is transcribed from original crime reports. The data cover the pandemic and during that time, Los Angeles Courts shut down which created a backlog of cases which resulted in cases being dismissed.

The data includes victim gender, victim ethnicity, date crime occurred, date crime was reported, area of police district where crime occurred, reported district number, crime code, crime code description, weapon used, weapon description, status of case etc…. The analysis focused on the variables listed above.

LOS ANGELES CRIME OVERVIEW 2020–2022

The Los Angeles Police Department is divided into twenty-one divisions. The district extends into the valley, patrols Hollywood and Downtown Los Angeles. Santa Monica and Beverly Hills have their own police departments and are not included in the twenty-one districts because they are not part of the LAPD.

Central bureau patrols Downtown Los Angeles. Central bureau had the highest incidents of crime with 42,141 reported crimes from 2020–2022. 77TH street is part of the south bureau and polices South Los Angeles.

Heavy percentage of crime is committed in central and south Los Angeles, but the third highest crime location is the Pacific division which is the area between Santa Monica and Imperial which includes LAX. The 405 is the Pacific division’s western border. Venice, Culver City and Marina Del Rey are locations within the Pacific division’s jurisdiction.

68,985 vehicles were stolen in Los Angeles from 2020–2022, making it the most common crime. There are various types of theft and burglary in the ten most common crimes in Los Angeles. Battery — simple assault is the second most common crime and Assault with deadly weapon — aggravated assault also makes the top ten.

INTIMATE PARTNER — SIMPLE ASSAULT

Intimate partner simple assault is generally defined as any willful and unlawful use of force or violence against another person. The victim can be a current or former spouse, fiancé, cohabitant, currently or formerly dated or have a chid with the person. Simple assault is a misdemeanor.

Intimate partner simple assault is one of the ten most common crime in Los Angeles from 2020–2022. A major reason for selecting intimate partner simple assault is the covid lockdown which began in March of 2020. The shutdown forced people indoors and forced individuals to spend more time with their significant other and cohabitant.

Figure three is a bar plot of reported cases of intimate partner simple assault in Los Angeles. The bar plot includes the number of reported cases by division and is color coded by the victim’s gender. Our analysis will focus on the division with the most cases of intimate partner simple assault: 77th street.

Los Angeles and 77th Street Comparison

Crime increased by 4.91% from 2020 to 2021 and by 10.33% from 2021 to 2022. In the two years of Covid shutdowns, crime in Los Angeles increased by 15.76%. Six of the ten most common crimes in Los Angeles were theft and burglary: 1. Vehicle — stolen, 2. Burglary from vehicle, 3. Theft of identity, 4. Burglary, 5. Theft plain — petty($950 & under), 6. Theft from vehicle — petty ($950 and under). The most logical conclusion for the increase in crime, especially theft and burglary is pandemic induced economic hardship led to people turning to crime and theft.

Intimate simple battery decreased in Los Angeles from 2020 to 2021 by 0.62% but increased by 2.73% from 2021 to 2022.

77th street division had the highest reported cases of intimate partner assault from 2020–2022 but the trend from year to year cuts the opposite way from the trend in Los Angeles for overall crime and intimate partner assault. In the 77th street division cases of intimate partner assault dropped by 9.62% from 2020 to 2021 and by 0.43% from 2021 to 2022. Overall from 2020 to 2022, reported cases dropped by 10.01%.

Women were the most likely victims of assault with 800 cases reported annually. Men were less common victimized than women.

Black and Hispanic women and men are the most common ethnicities to be victims of intimate partner assault in the 77th street division.

2020 was the year with the highest reported cases in the 77th street division. In 2020, January was the month with the most reported cases. There was a decrease from March to April as the lock down was put in place in Los Angeles but throughout the summer, cases increased into the fall. The beginning of the year, January and March are the months with the most reported cases.

2021 shows the beginning of the year as the months with the lowest reported incidents of assault and the cases increase throughout the year.

2022 follows a similar pattern as 2021, especially January and March.

The bar plots on the right are the same as the plots on the left but the plots on the right are colored by the outcome of the reported cases. Red is the most common color which means the investigation is ongoing. Black represents cases where arrests were made.

DOES INTIMATE PARTNER SIMPLE ASSAULT SHOW DATA JUKING BY THE LAPD?

The high number of ongoing cases makes intimate partner simple assault a possible place to juke the stats. The pandemic forced courts to shut down which caused a backlog. The judicial system was put in a position where misdemeanors and petty crimes had to be ignored and dismissed because of the backlog. Intimate partner aggravated assault cases could have been written up as intimate partner simple assault cases as a way of juking the stats. A felony becomes a misdemeanor, and that misdemeanor is dismissed bringing down the crime stats for the 77th street division.

An increase in misdemeanor intimate partner assault cases could point to juking the stats but what the data shows is that in the 77th street division, the assault cases decreased. The trend of increased crime is not seen in intimate partner simple assault in the 77th street division. In Los Angeles, crime increased overall, and intimate partner simple assault increased as well but that does not happen in the 77th street division.

An examination of the weapon used in the crime shows that most assailants used their bodies to cause bodily harm. There are cases where an unknown weapon/other weapon is written into the report but there is no way of figuring out what those weapons were and if they were serious enough to warrant a felony charge instead of a misdemeanor.

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