ABSTRACT
Hotspot maps are used to find where events or places e.g. These maps are frequently used by police departments, particularly in determining where to do hotspot policing (which focuses patrols on high-crime areas). Hotspot maps also often turn into population maps, where the dots indicate where people live rather than where the risk of something is. For example, a street with several apartment buildings will likely have more crimes (and thus have more dots on a hotspot map) than a street with only single-family homes. So not knowing the context of an area can make hotspot maps very misleading. Authors explore these issues in more detail throughout the lesson but keep in mind these risks as readers make their own hotspot maps. The authors will make hotspot maps using data on suicides in San Francisco between 2003 and 2017.
