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Expanding the Role of the Bar Chart in


Representing Crime Data
Terry Allen & Glen Buckner
Published online: 20 Sep 2012.

To cite this article: Terry Allen & Glen Buckner (1992) Expanding the Role of the Bar Chart in Representing Crime
Data, CHANCE, 5:3-4, 54-59

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09332480.1992.10554987

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Graphics can be effective. Correctly combining bar charts with
maps reveals crime rate patterns.

Expanding the Role of the


Bar Chart in Representing
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Crime Data

Terry Allen and Glen Buckner

Do more murders happen in Utah technical, artistic, and psychologi- stand well-executed graphics.
on Saturday? What time of day are cal factors, even the most nonquan- Graphical summaries of crime
c r i m e s most likely to h a p p e n ? titative person can easily under- data are used parsimoniously in
Many states summarize their crime
statistics each year. Unfortunately,
these summaries are often simply
unexciting volumes of difficult-to-
read computer printouts. Trends in
or clues about overall crime pat­
terns are buried in these volumes
of numbers.
T h i s is u n f o r t u n a t e b e c a u s e
graphical methods have emerged
in the last 15 years as one of the
most powerful tools for analyzing
data and for making that analysis
u n d e r s t a n d a b l e . The i n c r e a s e d
power and availability of personal
computers coupled with new and
better graphical software means
that visually comprehensible sta­
tistical summaries can be easily
produced. A data graphic aids the
researcher in data analysis a n d
makes the results accessible to the
lay p e r s o n . W h e r e a s effective Figure 1. Standard bar chart showing 10-year summary of the percent of as­
graphics depend on a variety of saults on law enforcement officers by time of day.

54 VOL. 5, NO. 3-4,1992 © 1992 Spriiif;[!r-V[irla(i Nnw York. Int:.


age a more visually accurate and
Utah Law Enforcement Officers Assaulted sophisticated use of graphics to
by Hour of the Day
Number = 2,369 clarify crime summaries. We use
1981 - 1990 data from the Utah crime reports
to illustrate potential problems
with bar charts and go on to sug­
gest data displays other than the
usual bar chart design.

Improving the Use of Bar


Charts for Display

Figure 1 is a standard vertical bar


chart using 10 years of data giving
the time of day, in 2-hour intervals,
that Utah law enforcement officers
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were assaulted. Aggregating 10


years improves on the vertical bar
chart using only 1 year's data,
which has been published in the
annual "Crime in Utah" report for
the past decade. Figure 1 flattens
Figure 2. Circular bar chart with the two highest assault times placed to­ out the year-to-year variation in the
gether. time of day of assaults by summa­
rizing 10 years of data into a single
graph. It shows an interesting pat­
tern in assault frequencies. Inter­
preting this trend is difficult with­
Utah Murders and Clearance Percentages
By Year
out knowing the distribution of law
enforcement officers on duty over
the course of a day. For example,
more officers on duty during a par­
ticular time of day could explain a
higher percent of injuries at that
time. Using the rates of injuries per
9 C> o n - d u t y officer by time of day
would eliminate this problem.
Whereas Fig. 1 clearly summa­
rizes the time-of-day pattern over

TT
10 years, it illustrates another dif­
ficulty of bar charts. W i t h bar
charts that depict time-dependent
1981 19B2 19B3 19B* 1985 1BI 19B7 19BB 19BB 1990 data, the linear nature of the chart
YEAR may mask significant information.
SrtADED AREA INDICATES PERCENT CLEARED
For example, the largest frequen­
cies for assaults on law enforce­
Figure 3. Plot symbol bar chart showing the number of murders and the per­ ment officers are from 10:00 P.M. to
cent solved by the police for each year. midnight and from midnight to
2:00 A.M., which are in direct time
sequence during the night but ap­
pear at opposite ends of the bar
many states. Such graphics are al- leading that they either leave false chart in Fig. 1. The very structure
m o s t e x c l u s i v e l y bar a n d pie impressions or fail to clearly show of the chart hides the sequential
charts. Unfortunately, some of the information. nature of the data. Figure 2 repre­
these charts are so visually mis- Our purpose here is to encour­ sents one way to put these two

CHANCE: NEW DIRECTIONS FOR STATISTICS AND COMPUTING 5 5


like a 24-hour clock and gives a
u t o n Crime Rate Per 1,000 Population a n d C l e a r a n c e Rates by Year
clear sequential picture.
B5-
BAR ORDER - Rape, Robbery, Aggravated Assault,
Burglary, Larceny/Theft, Car Theft

Two Levels of Information


BO-
in One Bar Chart
C
R Q raS S ^ S
Figures 3 and 4 show another way
; - in which bar charts can depict in­
E
R formation across time, now by year.
A
T
E 5°-
tad Here, the height of the bar is iden­
tMkJ
kn J tified by a plot symbol which is an­
other graphic. In Fig. 3, the plot
43- symbol is a pie chart. The height of
the "bar" corresponds to the num­
ber of murders that occurred dur­
mo­ ing a given year. This number is in­
19B1 19B2 19B3 199«. 1985 19B6 19Θ7 19ΘΒ 1999 1990
dicated by the height of the center
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YEAH
of the pie chart. The pie itself has
two divisions that show the pro­
Figure 4. Plot symbol bar chart showing the crime rate and the percent solved portion of murders solved and un­
by the police for each year. solved for that year. Pie charts al­
low us to see relative areas if there
are not too many divisions. With
only two slices in the pie, it be­
Murders by Day of the Week comes obvious that most Utah mur­
Utah 1978-1990
Number = 664 ders are solved each year (shaded
area).
Figure 4 is similar except that the
plot symbol is a small bar chart in­
dicating the percent of each major
c r i m e (except m u r d e r ) that is
solved each year. The reference
line across the m i d d l e of each
small chart is at 50%. The vertical
axis of this graphic represents the
" c r i m e r a t e " (major crimes per
1,000 population). The 50% mark
on each small bar chart is aligned
with the vertical axis at the overall
crime rate for that year. Figure 4,
exhibiting both trends over time
and within a particular year, pre­
sents more detail on the percent of
crimes solved. T w o interesting
points emerge from this graph.
First, only rape and aggravated as­
sault (other than murder) have at
Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday least 50% clearance rates for all
years. Second, the crime rate de­
Figure 5. Standard bar chart showing the number of murders by day of the creased from 1981 to 1984, then in­
week. creased until 1987 when it leveled
out. A possible causal factor is the
closing of a major Utah steel factory
tallest bars together and solve this gether by placing the bar chart on in 1984, which resulted in the loss
visual problem. It allows all se- a circular base and using concen- of several thousand jobs. The con­
quential time periods to appear to- trie circles as scale axes. It looks nection to the increase in the crime

5 6 VOL. 5. NO. 3-4,1992


is done in Fig. 6. This horizontal
Murders by Day of the Week
Utah 1978-1990 bar chart orders the bars according
Number = 664 to the proportion of murders each
day, with the confidence intervals
Friday overlaid on the bars for compari­
son. It is visually clear that all of
Sunday
the c o n f i d e n c e interval ranges
Tuesday overlap, indicating no statistically
Saturday ' significant difference in the pro­
portion of murders by day of the
Wednesday ' week. It is, however, interesting to
Thursday ' observe that the two highest days
are Friday and Sunday—the first
Monday '
and last days of the weekend.
0. DO 0.05 0.10 0.15 0.20 0.25 Figure 6 also shows one of the
trade-offs of the ordering by mag­
Proportion
nitude, which helps the eye but
loses the calendaring sequence.
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Figure 6. Bar chart with error bars showing the proportion of murders by day The graph in Fig. 7, suggested by
of the week. Cleveland, eliminates the visual
problem of Fig. 6, in which the
bars t e n d to obscure the lower
end of the confidence intervals,
Murders by Day of the Week by replacing the bars with dots.
Utah 1978-1990
Number = 664 This allows the user to focus on
the confidence intervals.
Friday -

Sunday - Using Bar Charts with


Geography
Tuesday -
A frequently used but often visu­
Saturday -
ally misleading chart is an area
Wednesday - chart as shown in Fig. 8. It displays
each county's reported crime rate
Thursday - by a corresponding shading: the
Monday - darker the shading, the higher the
crime rate. Low county frequencies
1 ' ' 1 | 1 1 ' ' 1 can result in unstable rates, al­
0.00 0.05 0.10 0.15 0.20 0.25
though smoothing techniques can
Proportion help with this problem.
A major difficulty w i t h area
Figure 7. Dot chart with error bars. charts is that the relative size and
shape of the areas can be visually
misleading. The eye is drawn to
rate, largely a m o n g p r o p e r t y The frequencies vary, with Sunday the geographically larger coun­
crimes, warrants further study. being popular a n d Monday un­ ties in Utah, even though some
popular for murder. Note that like have very small crime rates. But
the bar chart in Fig. 1, this bar chart many of Utah's high-crime areas
Day of the Week Bar Charts conceals the fact that Saturday and are, in fact, in small counties.
Sunday are adjacent. Figure 9 is a three-dimensional
A frequent question in law enforce­ It is also important to see if the version of Fig. 8. Its advantage
ment is whether murder rates differ difference among the days of the over Fig. 8 is the equal width of
by day of the week. A first attempt w e e k is m o r e t h a n n o i s e . One bars even t h o u g h the c o u n t i e s
to answer that question is Fig. 5, method is to calculate 95% confi­ vary in size. By focusing on the
which gives a 13-year aggregate of dence intervals for the proportion bars [rather than the relative size
Utah murders by day of the week. of murders that occur each day, as of the counties) we can clearly

CHANCE: NEW DIRECTIONS FOR STATISTICS AND COMPUTING 5 7


CRIME IN UTAH CRIME IN UTAH
Major Crimes per 1000 pop. by County Major Crimes per 1000 pop. by County
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RATE Υ77Λ S5 TO 3 *
^^M 45 OR MORE

Figure 8. Area chart shaded according to crime-rate Figure 10. Map with framed rectangles indicating ob­
grouping. served crime rates.

see the distribution of crimes per


CRIME IN UTAH capita in the state.
Major Crimes per 1000 pop. by County
One problem with categorizing
rates as in Figs. 8 and 9 is the loss
of detail within categories. Figure
10 is an attempt to overcome this
limitation by using framed rectan­
gles to show the crime rate in each
county. The tick marks on the sides
of the rectangles are at 50 major
crimes per 1,000 population. An
advantage of using the framed rec­
tangles is that they are the same
size and, thus, do not give a false
visual impression. More impor­
tantly, they avoid the information
loss of grouping. Each county dis­
plays its own graphical informa­
o TO 24 2S TO 34
tion, making it possible to discern
35 TD 44 45 OR MORE
differences between counties with
similar crime rates.
Figure 9. Three-dimensional map chart with bars showing crime-rate group­ Although framed rectangles re­
ings. flect a more accurate crime-rate

58 VOL. 5, NO. 3-4,1992


CRIME IN UTAH
Major Crimes per 1000 pop. by City
DAGGETT COUNTY

WEBER COUNTY.
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Counties With High Crime Rates


Over 65 Major Crimes per 1000 Population

Figure 12. Map chart with high-crime-rate counties


Figure 11. Surface map showing crime rate by city. raised.

picture for each county, all of the some counties may hide others [Special thanks to Steve Ander­
map charts in Figs. 8 through 10 that are lower and lie behind. son, Uniform Crime Reporting
give the false impression that the Manager, Utah Department of Pub­
crime rate is uniform throughout lic Safety, for his valuable assis­
the county. This is not the case; Conclusion tance.]
crimes occur where there are peo­
ple. Figure 11 is a surface map U s i n g bar c h a r t s to r e p r e s e n t Additional Reading
where the crime rate for the major crime data is growing in popular­ Buckner, G. and Allen, T. (1988), "Us­
cities in Utah is proportional to ity b e c a u s e of t h e e a s e w i t h ing SAS/GRAPH Software to Create
the h e i g h t of the b u m p s . This w h i c h users can interpret the in­ Graphics for Data Analysis," Pro­
map gives very different informa­ formation. They pack a lot of data ceedings: SAS Users Group Interna­
tional, 13, 1087-1092.
t i o n a b o u t t h e d i s t r i b u t i o n of into a few simple forms and catch
crime throughout the state than the r e a d e r ' s eye. Certainly bar Cleveland, W.S. (1984), "Graphical
does a m a p w h i c h focuses on charts are preferable to computer Methods for Data Presentation: Full
county boundaries. printouts, w h i c h are indecipher­ Scale Breaks, Dot Charts, and Mul-
Figure 12 is the ultimate bar able to most readers. tibased Logging," The American
Statistician, 38, 270-280.
chart representation of counties. But bar graphs should be de­
Each c o u n t y is a t h r e e - d i m e n ­ signed to ensure that they accu­ Cleveland, W.S. and McGill, R. (1984),
s i o n a l bar; h o w e v e r , b a r s are rately represent the data. Like all "Graphical Perception: Theory, Ex­
r a i s e d for only t h o s e c o u n t i e s g r a p h i c s , t h e c r e a t i o n of bar perimentation, and Application to
with high crime rates to give a graphs cannot be reduced to a me­ the Development of Graphical
Methods," Journal of the American
visual feel for the high-crime ar­ chanical procedure, involving as Statistical Association, 79, 5 3 1 -
eas. As visually appealing as this it does artistic and psychological 554.
graph is, it contains even less in­ elements as well as elements of
formation than the flat chart in quantification. A little thought Schmid, CF. and Schmid, S.E. (1979),
Fig. 8. In addition to the weak­ and creativity, however, can lead Handbook of Graphic Presentation,
New York: John Wiley and Sons.
nesses of Fig. 8, its shortcomings to bar graphs which are visually
are the difficulty in getting an ac­ interesting, packed with informa­ Tufte, E. R. (1983), The Visual Display
curate measure of the height of tion, and accurate in their repre­ of Quantitative Information, Chesh­
the bars, and the high bars for sentation. ire, CT: Graphics Press.

CHANCE: NEW DIRECTIONS FOR STATISTICS AND COMPUTING 5 9

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