For my final project, I had initially planned on exploring the relationship between access to information and political participation, or engagement with and confidence in (various levels of) government in Uganda. For this, I had chosen to explore the 2008 and 2012 opinion polls to see if there were any observed differences after the 2011 election. Although I was incredibly keen on exploring this subject from both spatial and aspatial perspectives, I was unable to do so due to access to data, or lack thereof. So instead, I chose to examine the spatial and temporal patterning of commercial robberies in Toronto, Ontario. While I can’t say that this perfectly aligns with my study interests (check out my About Me page), (environmental) criminology and crime analysis are fascinating disciplines nonetheless (which I am constantly reminded about from my friends that study criminology). My project partner and I chose to focus on (commercial) robberies to shift the focus from the more researched forms of violent crime (e.g., homicide and sexual assault) in hopes of adding value to the identified gap in research. Spatial and temporal patterning of commercial robberies are explored through CrimeStat 4.02 and ArcMap 10.6.1 (e.g., kernel density estimation, Knox index, and more), with emphasis on the importance of knowing the underlying population distribution in performing the analysis and in interpreting the results. If you’re interested in learning more about the project, please visit the project website: City of Toronto: Commercial Robbery.
P.S. I’m happy to report that I received approvals for the requested geocoded data for Uganda! Ironically, the approval e-mail arrived exactly on the day that I finished my final project – is this really a mere coincidence?! Anyways, it was still a sore reminder that I missed my chance to explore the dataset for this particular project, but it’s now in my possession (or within my access, in legal terms). Who knows, I may examine it in my spare time or have the opportunity to use it in future research at grad school!