www.happen.software · sales@happen.softwareCase study · Media · Platforms & portals
How safe is my neighbourhood? Answered for every precinct
CrimeCheck turns South Africa's official police statistics into a risk gauge, ranking, and map for every one of 1,158 police precincts. About 100,000 people a week used it to check where they live, or where they're thinking of moving. We built it for News24.
- Bookmark Awards finalist · 2023
- 2022–2024
100,000
Users a week, finding out how safe their neighbourhood is
1,158
Police precincts mapped, each with risk gauges and rankings on seven indices
50+
Crime types per precinct, from 2017 onward, updated with every quarterly release
Finalist
In the 2023 IAB Bookmark Awards, Specialist Publisher Sites, with News24's articles drawing on its data
At a glance
- Client
- News24
- Reach
- About 100,000 users a week, with News24 articles and insights built on its data
- Coverage
- 1,158 police precincts, every crime type the police report, from 2017 onward
- Indices
- Seven risk indices, from serious crime and contact crime to murder, sexual offences, aggravated robbery, trio crimes, and burglary
- Engagement
- Built in 2022, then updated with each quarterly release until 2024
- Recognition
- Finalist, 2023 IAB Bookmark Awards, Specialist Publisher Sites
- Platforms
- A public site and an admin portal for loading each release, with the API behind them
01The situation
The South African Police Service publishes crime statistics per police precinct, more than 50 crime types for each of 1,158 precincts, released quarterly. But raw counts don't say much about risk: a precinct with a hundred burglaries among a hundred people is very different from one with a hundred among a thousand. And precinct boundaries don't match suburbs, wards, or census areas, so there are no ready-made population figures to divide by.
Our data scientists worked with professors at Stellenbosch University to estimate the population and households in every precinct for every year from Stats SA's district figures, and to turn the crime rates into comparable risk indices. We also built the data management tools, API, and site that put it in front of News24's readers, launched in July 2022 and updated with each release after.
- 01
Counts aren't risk
Crime has to be read as a rate per 1,000 people, or per 1,000 households for burglary, to compare a rural precinct with a city one.
- 02
Boundaries that match nothing
People know their address or suburb, not their police precinct, and precincts cut across every other boundary.
- 03
A new release every quarter
The year in progress grows with each release, so every chart, ranking, and comparison has to update without breaking.
02What changes
- Finding your precinctWithout it: Working out which police station covers an address.With CrimeCheck: Search an address or area, and the precinct it falls in is found from its boundary.
- Understanding riskWithout it: Raw crime counts in spreadsheets.With CrimeCheck: A risk gauge per index, based on the rate per 1,000 people or households, comparable across precincts and years.
- ContextWithout it: No sense of how a precinct compares.With CrimeCheck: National and provincial rankings, the change on last year, and how it compares with the national average.
- What's behind itWithout it: Index totals with no breakdown.With CrimeCheck: Each crime's share of the index, and the actual numbers, rates, or year-on-year change for every crime type.
- Comparing areasWithout it: Two spreadsheets side by side.With CrimeCheck: Up to three precincts compared on gauges, rankings, breakdowns, and trends, plus every neighbouring precinct.
- This year so farWithout it: Hard to tell whether the year is better or worse.With CrimeCheck: Daily averages for every crime type, for each year and the year in progress.
03How it works
Checking a neighbourhood, end to end
Swipe to see the whole diagram.
- 1
Search
The reader types an address or area. It's located on the map and matched to the police precinct whose boundary contains it.
- 2
See the risk
The precinct page shows a gauge for the chosen index, the precinct's national and provincial rank, and how it has moved since last year and against the national average.
- 3
Understand it
A chart shows which crimes drive the index, and a table gives every crime type's numbers, rates, or change, with the precinct's trend over the years.
- 4
Look around
Neighbouring precincts are listed with their gauges, and the map shows every precinct coloured by the chosen index and year.
- 5
Compare
The reader adds up to three precincts, perhaps where they live and where they might move, and sees them side by side.
- 6
Share
The page can be shared, and the station's phone number and directions are a tap away.
04What we built
Address to precinct
Address and place search finds the correct police precinct quickly, helping readers understand risk where they live.
Risk gauges
A gauge for each of seven indices, from serious crime to murder and burglary, built on the rate per 1,000 people or households and comparable between precincts and years.
Rankings
Every precinct ranked nationally and within its province on each index, with the change on last year and the difference from the national average.
Precinct maps
A map of every precinct, coloured by the chosen index, year, and map type, with each precinct's rank and crime totals on hover.
Crime breakdowns
What drives each index, and every crime type's reported numbers, rates per 1,000, or change on last year, for the nation and for each precinct.
Compare & neighbours
Up to three precincts side by side on gauges, ranks, breakdowns, and trends, and every precinct's neighbours from their shared boundaries.
Daily statistics
The average number of each crime per day, for every year and the year in progress, so readers can tell whether this year is better or worse.
Quarterly imports
News24's team loads each release in the portal: crime rates, index values, rankings, and percentages, plus precinct boundaries and police station details.
05What each team gets
Readers
- The risk where they live, from an address
- Rankings and trends in plain language
- Areas compared before a move
News24 journalists
- Insights for articles, precinct by precinct
- National and provincial pictures of each crime
- A tool to link readers to from crime coverage
News24 data team
- Each quarter's release loaded through the portal
- Imports checked before they go live
- The year in progress kept current
06How we delivered
- May–Jul 2022
Build & launch
Started in May with the precinct boundaries, imports, and API, built the site's maps, gauges, rankings, and comparisons through June, and launched with News24 in July.
- Late 2022
Quarterly releases
Each new quarter of police data loaded as it was released, with caching, performance, and dependency updates along the way.
- 2023–2024
Updates & support
Delivered quarterly data updates and supported News24's readers. The site was a finalist in the 2023 Bookmark Awards.
07Built to last
- An address leads to the correct police precinct, so readers can assess the area they actually live in.
- Neighbouring areas are easy to find and compare alongside national and provincial rankings.
- The site stays responsive when a news story brings a surge of readers.
- Quarterly data updates keep gauges, maps, rankings, and comparisons aligned.
- Partial-year figures are clearly labelled so readers can interpret comparisons correctly.
- .NET
- ASP.NET Core
- SQL Server
- Angular
- Leaflet
- Google Maps
Turning public data into something people use?
We'll talk through how to take a large public dataset, make it searchable by the place people know, and present it so readers can understand it. Book a free 30-minute call with one of our engineers.
sales@happen.software · www.happen.software/contact
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