So in this post I’ll share a Google Data Studio report displaying Crime in South Africa Data. The data source is based on South African Police Service (SAPS) crime statistics for the past ten years.

I will be making the dataset available for purchase soon.

The Data Studio report showing Crimes in South Africa Data

This Data Studio report displays Crime in South Africa for the past decade.

In order to view the embedded Google Map displaying Crime by Police Station you will need to open the Report in Google Data Studio.

To do this click on the ‘Google Data Studio’ logo in the bottom right corner of the embedded report.

If you are unable to view the embedded map showing crimes by Police Station location there is what it looks like. The size and colour intensity of the bubble indicate the number of crimes committed.

Below is the Google Data Studio report showing South African Police Crime statistics.

Looking at the South African Crime Stats in the Data Studio Report: Page 1

The first section of the Crime Statistics report shows the map of South Africa mapping the number of Crimes onto the location of each Police Station.

We can filter by Province, Crime Category and Crime.

The interactive Google Map allows you to zoom in to view a close up of Statistics from each Police Station.

You are also able to search for specific Police Stations using the filter above the table displaying Police Stations, Provinces and the number of Crimes.

The next section of the report allows you to see the increase or decrease of crimes over time.

As shown below you can use various filters to see how the crime levels have increased or decreased over time.

You can also compare the increase or decrease of crimes in South Africa’s provinces in a time series line chart.

Looking at the South African Crime Stats in the Data Studio Report: Page 2

The second page of the report has some different charts for displaying crime data in South Africa.

There is a pivot table chart for displaying the number of crimes committed each year by province. If you click the + symbol next to Province it will expand to show each individual police station within the province.

I’ve also created a serious of charts that allow you to compare the increase or decrease of each type of crime in each province.

Each chart shows only the relevant data for each province. You can filter the types of crime and crime categories using the filters provided.

Comparing the numbers in this data visualization to the official SAPS Crime Stats

I’ve created a pivot table that mimics the Crime Stats Excel file data provided by the SAPS.

As an example, below is a screenshot from the original Crime Stats data file with the number of murders reported at Nyanga police station in Cape Town highlighted.

Below is a pivot table in the Data Studio visualization that shows the crime categories and crimes. The number of murders in Nyanga for 2018/2019 (labelled 2019 in the Data Studio report) is highlighted.

Let me know if you spot any discrepancies between the data. There are some differences in the totals, as for some reason the total number of Sexual offences seem to be counted twice in the original document.

Looking at the Locations of Crime in major South African cities

Since some people might find it difficult to access or view the Google Map I’ve decided to add some screenshots showing the locations of crime in major South African cities.

I’ve also included information about the number of crimes reported in each Police Station in the province.

Crime in Johannesburg

Below is a map showing the the number of crimes reported at each police station in the city of Johannesburg and surrounding areas.

Below is a list of each type of Crime in Gauteng for the period 2018/2019.

Crime in Cape Town

Below is a map showing the the number of crimes reported at each police station in the city of Cape Town and surrounding areas.

Below is a list of each type of Crime in the Western Cape for the period 2018/2019.

Crime in Durban

Below is a map showing the the number of crimes reported at each police station in the eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality that contains the city of Durban and surrounding areas.

Below is a list of each type of Crime in KwaZulu-Natal for the period 2018/2019.

Crime in Port Elizabeth

Below is a map showing the the number of crimes reported at each police station in the Nelson Mandela Bay metropolitan municipality that contains the city of Durban and surrounding areas.

Below is a list of each type of Crime in the Eastern Cape for the period 2018/2019.

The Data Source is based on SAPS Crime Statistics

The data source is based on SAPS Crime Statistics that are released annually.

You can view the latest SAPS Crime Stats by clicking this link.

The downloadable SAPS data does not allow you to view all crimes by all locations. Instead you must choose to view the statistics for each police station individually.

I compiled the individual Police Station numbers into one single CSV file.

In order to get the Latitude and Longitude coordinates I used GeoCode in Google Sheets. You can read about the method of doing that by reading this blog post; How to build a custom Google Map in Data Studio using Google Sheets and Geocode

In order to get the final CSV file into Google Data Studio I uploaded it to Google Cloud Storage and then used BigQuery to access the data. You can read more about that method in this blog post; How to connect Google Data Studio to a CSV file using BigQuery and Cloud Storage

My Other Blog Posts

I hope you found this blog post interesting and informative. You might enjoy some of my other blog posts.