A Visual Analytics Approach to Facilitate Crime Hotspot Analysis. (18th July 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: de Queiroz Neto, José F.; Santos, Emanuele; Vidal, Creto Augusto; Ebert, David S.
• Is Part Of: Computer graphics forum. Volume 39:Number 3(2020)
• Page Start: 139
• Page End: 151
• Publication Date: 2020-07-18
• Subjects: CCS Concepts -- Human‐centered computing → Visual analytics -- Visualization systems and tools; Computer graphics -- Periodicals; 006.605
• DOI: 10.1111/cgf.13969
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0167-7055

Abstract

Abstract: Computer‐based technology has played a significant role in crime prevention over the past 30 years, especially with the popularization of spatial databases and crime mapping systems. Police departments frequently use hotspot analysis to identify regions that should be a priority in receiving preventive resources. Practitioners and researchers agree that tracking crime over time and identifying its geographic patterns are vital information for planning efficiently. Frequently, police departments have access to systems that are too complicated and excessively technical, leading to modest usage. By working closely together with domain experts from police agencies of two different countries, we identified and characterized five domain tasks inherent to the hotspot analysis problem and developed SHOC, a visualization tool that strives for simplicity and ease of use in helping users to perform all the domain tasks. SHOC is included in a visual analytics system that allows users without technical expertise to annotate, save, and share analyses. We also demonstrate that our system effectively supports the completion of the domain tasks in two different real‐world case studies.