Analysis of NYPD complaint data to uncover crime trends, hotspots, and demographic patterns across New York City's five boroughs.
Crime continues to affect communities across New York State, and understanding crime trends is essential for improving public safety. This project analyzes complaint patterns by offense type, location, time, and demographics — providing actionable insights for law enforcement, policymakers, and community members.
- Source: NYC Open Data – NYPD Complaint Data (Year-to-Date)
- Snapshot date: January 9, 2025
- Original size: 433,282 rows × 36 columns (154MB)
- Download: The dataset is hosted on Kaggle → NYPD Complaint Data – Snapshot January 2025
Since this dataset is updated frequently by the NYPD, a fixed snapshot used in this analysis is available on Kaggle to ensure reproducibility.
| Tool | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Microsoft Excel | Data cleaning and preprocessing |
| Tableau | Exploratory data analysis and dashboard |
All preprocessing was done in Excel. The original 433,282-row dataset was reduced to 104,965 rows after the following steps:
| Issue | Action | Records Affected |
|---|---|---|
| Missing borough name (BORO_NM) | Removed | 477 |
| Invalid complaint from date (CMPLNT_FR_DT) | Removed | 13,944 |
| Missing complaint to date (CMPLNT_TO_DT) | Removed | 21,098 |
| Missing premises type (PREM_TYP_DESC) | Removed | 11,417 |
| Unknown/inaccurate suspect age group | Removed | Multiple |
| Unknown/inaccurate victim age group | Removed | Multiple |
| Irrelevant columns | Dropped | 16 columns |
Note: Rows with null values were dropped rather than imputed due to hardware constraints during analysis (154MB file in Excel). A more rigorous approach would investigate the missingness pattern and apply imputation where appropriate.
Crime Type Distribution
- Assault is the most reported crime, followed by Harassment and Felony Assault.
Suspect & Victim Demographics
- 70% of suspects are male.
- Most victims fall in the 25–44 age group.
Temporal Trends
- Crime rates are lowest in January, rise through spring, and peak between May and July.
- Higher crime rates in warmer months align with increased outdoor activity.
Location Patterns
- The majority of crimes occur in residential apartments and on streets.
- Public housing is also a significant location for incidents.
Geospatial Distribution
- Brooklyn and Queens show the highest crime concentrations across the dataset.
The Tableau dashboard includes:
- Interactive Map — crime hotspots across NYC boroughs
- Dynamic Filters — filter by crime type, time period, and location
- Crime Trend Chart — crime rate changes over time
- Demographics Breakdown — suspect and victim age, gender, and race
- Top Locations — areas with the highest reported incidents
Full documentation is available in the /docs folder:
| Document | Description |
|---|---|
Project_Description.doc |
Overview, problem statement, and dataset summary |
Project_Scoping_Document.doc |
Business problem, methods, milestones, and timeline |
Data_Curation.docx |
Detailed data profiling and cleaning steps |
EDA.docx |
Exploratory data analysis with findings and conclusions |
nypd-crime-analysis/
├── README.md
├── .gitignore
├── docs/
│ ├── Project_Description.doc
│ ├── Project_Scoping_Document.doc
│ ├── Data_Curation.docx
│ └── EDA.docx
└── data/
└── README.md ← instructions to download the dataset
Suhaib Smadi
Computer Science Graduate — WISE University, Amman, Jordan