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UK Data Service Logo

Mapping crime data in R: An interactive introduction

17 Mar 2025 11:00 am - 12:30 pm
Online
Training
Crime
Data skills
Workshop

Unlock the power of crime mapping in R

Do you want to visualise crime data on maps but don’t know how?

Crime data often contains spatial components that reveal geographic patterns. Displaying these patterns on a map is incredibly insightful but it can feel overwhelming if you have never worked with spatial or GIS data before.

These free workshops are designed to help you bridge that gap. Learn how to use R, a powerful statistical and graphical environment, to map open-source police crime statistics onto geographic representations.

This is the first of two mapping crime data in R workshops and will cover some fundamental theories and concepts surrounding GIS and spatial data. The second session will be a live code demonstration using R and RStudio.

What you will learn:

  • Understand the fundamentals of GIS data and how they connect to crime data analysis.
  • Explore open-source crime data and spatial data like shapefiles.
  • Learn to download, import, and process spatial data for mapping.
  • Use R packages like ggplot2, sf, and tmap for data visualisation.
  • Discover methods for joining crime data with spatial data.
  • Gain insights into classification techniques for mapping crime rates.
  • Get a brief overview of spatial autocorrelation, interpolation, and multivariate analysis methods.
  • Explore the use of census data for enhancing crime maps.

Key features:

  • Interactive presentation: Engage with surveys and visual tools for an interactive learning experience.
  • Practical coding demonstration: Watch step-by-step coding in RStudio with downloadable materials to follow along.
  • Pre-workshop resources: Receive setup instructions, a GitHub link for materials, and recommended reading to get started ahead of time.
  • Hands-on focus: Troubleshoot common errors, such as data loading issues and coding glitches, to ensure smooth execution.

Presenter: Nadia Kennar, UK Data Service

Prerequisites:

  • Familiarity with R: Participants should know how to set the working directory, read in data, write basic functions, and save files.
  • Installed software: R and RStudio should be installed and operational.
  • No prior GIS or spatial data experience is required.

Target audience: Researchers and anyone interested in analysing crime and spatial data.

Additional information: Coding materials, including detailed setup instructions, will be available mid-February via our GitHub page.

This event will be livestreamed on our UK Data Service YouTube channel but the chat will be disabled. By registering and attending the Zoom event you will be able to ask questions and interact.

Recordings of UK Data Service events are made available on our YouTube channel and, together with the slides, on our past events pages soon after the event has taken place.