Reading Assignment: Chapters 1, 2, 4 & 5 from Crime Analysis with Crime Mapping, 3rd Edition; (2013) Author Rachael Boba Santos, SAGE Publications

Primary Task Response: Within the Discussion Board area, write 400-600 words that respond to the following questions with your thoughts, ideas, and comments. This will be the foundation for future discussions by your classmates. Be substantive and clear, and use examples to reinforce your ideas.

Choose a large municipal police department such as Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, or your state police department, and discuss the following:

Summarize its history of the use of data analysis.

How are the statistical variables such as mean, mode, and median utilized in analyzing criminal data?

Explain how crime rates are calculated and utilized to address specific issues or problems with the data sets.

Assignment Objectives - Describe basic statistical terms including but not limited to population, sample size, distribution, median, mean, standard deviation, and Bell Curve.