Crime in the Town of Ocean City, MarylandA quiet winter getaway to a booming summer of attraction and crime.

Matthew BrickerShippensburg UniversityCapstone GIS ProjectFall 2016

Ocean City, M aryland is located onM aryland's eastern shore (See Figure1). The resort tow n has a year roundpop ulation of 7,000. The seasonalpop ulation, p eak ing on the w eek endof July 4th, has risen above 350,000.This pop ulation rise on the 4.4square mile p eninsula is caused b y atourist pop ulation ranging fromfamilies look ing for a getaw ay to aw eek of p arties in a b each tow n.From the boardw alk to the b each,from Thrasher's French Fries toFager's Island, there is something foreveryone in Ocean City, M aryland.

Ocean City hosts many pop ularevents throughout the w inter andsummer months. Ocean City is hostto firew ork show s, concerts, boatingevents, p arades and much more.During the summer months, OceanCity hosts volleyb all and soccertournaments, movies on the b each,car, motorcyle and air show s. Thelist goes on and on. For anyonelook ing for an active summer, OceanCity, M aryland is sure to have manyevents to satisfy the needs andw ants of anyone w ho visits, or livesin the tow n of Ocean City, M aryland.

Data and Results

ArcGIS Online for M aryland (2016). M D iM AP: M aryland Physical Boundaries – Country Boundaries (Detailed) [Data File]. R etrieved from http s://data.maryland.gov/Boundaries/M D-iM AP-M aryland-Physical-Boundaries-County-Bounda/gp5q-b b dcT he Baltimore Sun (2011). R ecord numb ers in Ocean City for July 4th. R etrieved from http://articles.b altimoresun.com/2011-07-05/travel/b al-ocean-city-md-july-4-crow ds-20110705_1_ ocean-city-estimates-tourism-officialsOcean City Police Dep artment Crime Analysis Unit (2016). OCPD Crime Data [Data File]. R etrieved from Crime Analyst Brandon R eim.United States Census Bureau (2015). Quick Facts Ocean City tow n, M aryland. R etrieved from http://w w w .census.gov/quick facts/tab le/PS T045215/2458225

Purpose and Objectives

References

T he p urpose of this b rochure is toexp lain w here crime occured in2016 to assist police p atrol effortson the streets of Ocean City,M aryland.To accomp lish the p urpose, threeob jectives need to b e defined asfollow s:1. W hat calls for service are criminalversus non-criminal?2. How does the criminal landscap echange b etw een violent and non-violent offenses?3. How does the criminal landscap echange across time?

Methods and Data

Figure 1: Ocean City, M aryland

T he first step tow ards comp letingthe three ob jectives outlined in thesection above named "Purpose andOb jectives" is to collect data. All ofthe Call For Service (CFS) data in thisb rochure w as p rovided b y the OceanCity Police Dep artment. The dataw as collected b y their Comp uterAided Disp atch system and p rovidedfor the p urpose of this p roject b yCrime Analyst Brandon R eim. Thepolygon data used to define mystudy area w as p rovided b y the stateof M aryland's "M D iM ap" online GISdata portal.T he second step tow ardscomp leting the ob jectives of thisb rochure is to define terms. For thep urpose of this b rochure, "Violent"

M A R Y L A N DM A R Y L A N D

Ocean City

Ocean City, M aryland is a resort tow nw ith quiet w inters and pop uloussummers. Analysis of Figure 3 show sthat both violent and non-violentcrime are higher during the secondfour months of the year (M ay –August) in comp arison to the firstfour months of the year (January -Ap ril). This analysis is seen quantifiedin Tab le 1.The highest p ercent increase acrossthe time classification is Violent crimew hich saw and 835% increase in crimeduring 2016. Figure 3 also show sthree analysis lines. The southernhotspot is mark ed w ith a p urp leanalysis line. This line show s that

during the first four months of the year,a relative hotspot is formed on thesouthern end of Ocean City b y bothcrime classifications. During the nextfour months of the year, this hotspotexp ands around itself and along thesouthern most p art of the p eninsula.This is lik ely due to the pop ular OceanCity Boardw alk w here crow ds gatherseemingly every evening from M aythrough August (extending from thesouthern inlet north to 27th street nearw here the hotspot ends). From thep ersp ective of a police officer, this is theb usiest p art of tow n b y pop ulation andnumb er the of storefronts. Thecomb ination of these tw o (as the

pop ulation rises in the second fourmonths of the year) is a recip e for anexp anded hot spot for both violentand non-violent crime. The differenceb etw een the violent and non-violentcrime map is w here the southernhotspot is located. The violent crimehotspot is slightly farther north thanthe non-violent crime hotspot. Thenon-violent hotspot is centrallylocated at the main entrance to theboardw alk w hile the violent crimehotspot from January through Ap ril iscentrally located on a pop ular b ar,"Cow boy Coast".The green analysis line show s arelative medium density hotspot

T he 2015 pop ulation estimate fromthe United States Census Bureauclaims that the year roundpop ulation is 7,050. As statedb efore, this pop ulation risesdramatically during the summermonths, mainly from M ay throughAugust. Along w ith a risingresident/tourist pop ulation in thesummer, the Ocean City PoliceDep artment increased their p atrolcap acity to ap p roximately 150%during this same stretch of 2016(from ap p roximately 100 officers to150 officers). From January 1, 2016

through August 31, 2016 the tow n ofOcean City saw more than 60,000calls for service (CFS) involving policeresponse. M ore than 47,000 ofthese calls came in the second half ofthis sp an, from M ay through August.M eanw hile the w inter-tow n andsummer-city saw just 13,000 calls forservice in the first four months of theyear through Ap ril. This dramaticchange in crime, driven b ypop ulation, creates a uniquep rob lem for the police of Ocean City,M aryland.

January - April May - August

Non- Violent CrimeViolent Crime

Crime Density0 - 1314 - 2526 - 3839 - 5051 - 250251 - 500

Crime Density (Tenths)0 - 5051 - 100101 - 150151 - 200201 - 1,0001,001 - 2,000

Figure 2: W ork flow p rocess to select andp rep are violent crime data from Januaryto Ap ril in Ocean City, M aryland.

INTRODUCTION

Methods and Data ContinuedMethods and Data

References

Unk now n Author Image p rovided b y: ocvacations.com

Cow boy Coast

Police Dep artment

Boardw alk Entrance

S eacret's Bar

harmed or threated w ith harm and a"Non- Violent" crime is a criminal actw here the victim w as not harmed orthreatened w ith harm. "Break s FromService" include residential,neighborhood, and b usiness check s.

These are common terms used b ypolice officers to tak e b reak s fromservice. "Incident R eports" are CFSfor w hich a report w as tak en b y anOcean City, M aryland police officer.During data analysis, the defined

time p eriod is from January, 2016through August, 2016. This is aselected p eriod of eight months andfor data analysis p urposes, the dataw as sp lit into tw o four monthintervals. A samp le w ork flow w ascreated in Figure 2 show ing thisselection b y month and crime typ e forviolent crime in Ocean City, M arylandfrom January through Ap ril.T he w ork flow in Figure 2 is a samp leand the same p rocess w as used toselect for non- violent crime as w ell asdefining the tw o study p eriods ofJanuary through Ap ril and M aythrough August.In addition to w ork show n in Figure 2,all data w ere p rojected to a commonp rojection of NAD83 M arylandStatePlane Feet allow ing formeaningful data interp retation w ithinthe state of M aryland and in this case,M aryland's eastern shore. Also notshow n in Figure 2, w as selecting forthe Ocean City polygon. In order toselect a polygon for Ocean City, I usedM aryland county data and then used atool named "singlep art to multip art"to b reak ap art all of M aryland statepolygons. I then selected for theOcean City polygon and used this as aninp ut, show n in Figure 2 as "OceanCity".The w ork flow show n in Figure 2 w asused to create ten rasters, four ofw hich are show n in Figure 3. Theserasters include 5 sets of rasters w hichhave a "January - Ap ril" and a "M ay -August" classification as w ell as a"CFS", "Non-Violent", "Break s FromService", "Incident R eports", and"Violent" classification. The relaventdata for all ten rasters are show n inTab le 1 including total counts andp ercent change across time.The four reference map s of Figure 3are of non-violent crime in the tow n ofOcean City, W orcester County,M arland. Horizontal analysis show sthe distrib ution of crime from January1, 2016 through Ap ril 30, 2016 to M ay 1,2016 through August 31,2016. Verticleanalysis distiguishes crime into tw op arts, violent and non-violent asp reviously defined.To comp lete ob jectives tw o and three,the map s of Figure 3 still needed tohave a meaningful classification. Eachmap needed to b e comp ared to eachother across time and crime typ e. Toachieve this, tw o color schemes (redand orange) w ere selected for useacross both crime typ es (non-violent isorange and violent is red). This allow sfor time analysis and to allow for crimetyp e to crime typ e analysis I usedsimilar hue b rightness variations. Theresult are crime typ e map s w hoslightest color (alb eit a different color)is the same shade as the other crimetyp e map. This allow s for a full crimemap analysis, including analysis acrosscrime typ e. Figure 3:Four crime density map s show ing crime in the tow n of

Ocean City, M aryland from January, 2016 through August, 2016.

Analysis and Conclusions

ap p roximately midw ay from thenorth and south ends of thep eninsula. Again, the analysis lineidentifies tw o different develop inghotspots during the first four monthsof the year w hich exp and during thefollow ing four months of the year forviolent and non-violent crime.How ever, unlik e the southernhotspot, there is no boardw alk here.The attraction at the violent crimehotspot location is 49th streetS eacrets Bar and Dumser’s Dairyland.Seacrets is a pop ular b ar/night clubw hich has large p arties everyw eek end during the summer andw hen the p arty is over at 2am, thecrow d moves to get their ice creamfix at Dumser's Dairyland. Violentcrime at the green analysis lineshow s that crime increases andexp ands around this area (Seacretsand Dumser’s Dairyland). Thishotspot is a develop ing hotspotw hich although it attracts crimeduring the first four months of theyear, poses an entirely differentp rob lem during the summer months.

From p ersonal exp erience, the OceanCity Police Dep artment's Police Officersp roactively p atrol this area and oftenconduct foot p atrols in the Seacretsp ark ing lot w hich identifies more crimethan than is identified in the first fourmonths of the year.The non-violent crime hotspot in thisarea can b e seen as increasing b ut alsow ashed out and unidentifiab le as acentral hot spot location as p eninsulab ecomes consumed b y non-violentcrime. The non-violent hotspot seendevelop ing in the first four months ofthe year is the only hotspot not locatedat an "attraction". This hotspot w hichdissolves w ith a much larger portion ofthe p eninsula lik ely due to trafficenforcement in the summer, is w herethe Ocean City Police Dep artmentheadquarters is located. M any crimesget reported at the police station andmy analysis w ould b e that b ecause ofrelatively low crime during the w intermonths, a "hotspot" ap p ears. This"hotspot" is then hidden w hen crimesk yrock ets from M ay through August.The criminal landscap e changes

b etw een violent and non-violentoffenses on tw o fronts; distrib utionand count. Non-violent crime hasfew high value hot spot locationsw hile violent crime is more evenlydistrib uted across the p eninsula.Additionally, the total count of non-violent crime is 30-times higher thanviolent crime count totals.The temporal landscap e of crimedensity in Ocean City show s that thepop ulation increase mentioned in theintroduction directly influences thecriminal activity. Show n in Tab le 1,non-violent crime increases b y 665p ercent and 835 p ercent.Additionally, incident reportscomp leted during the first fourmonths of the year totaled just 907w hile the second four monthstotaled 5,713, up 530 p ercent. Inconclusion, both crime typ es seedramatic rise across time b ut violentcrime is p redictab le near pop ularb ars and non-violent crime is sp readmore evenly throughout Ocean City.Through this analysis, p atroleffectiveness can b e maximiz ed.

Table 1: Call for Service Break dow n