Using crime data for teaching

The datasets in this package can be used for teaching a variety of skills for crime mapping and other types of crime analysis. This includes point and area-level crime data that can be used to teach different skills, such as hotspot mapping, choropleth mapping, mapping crime series and mapping change over time. The package includes datasets from 10 different countries across five continents so that students can learn to handle a variety of data from different places.

All the datasets in this package come in two formats: first as a conventional R package dataset that can be loaded using the data() function from the base package, and secondly as a stand-alone file hosted on GitHub Pages. These stand-alone files are in a variety of different file formats to give students the opportunity to learn how to load files of different types. In most cases the contents of the two versions of the dataset are identical, but where they differ that is noted below.

If you only want to teach students about manipulating existing data, you can get students to install the crimemappingdata package from GitHub and load the data using the data() function from the base package. However, loading data is an important part of any analytical workflow, and one students frequently struggle with. For that reason I suggest loading the datasets from the stand-alone file URL listed on the help page (included in the package itself and on the package website) associated with each dataset. This will be particularly useful for students for datasets that must be separately downloaded and/or unzipped before being loaded (such as shapefiles), since this gives students practice in interacting with the file system, creating temporary files, etc.

These datasets are used in the used for teaching crime mapping to BSc Crime and Security Science students at University College London. The teaching materials are available on the Learn crime mapping with R website for free re-use.