saolxs/effect-of-covid19-on-crime-rate-in-south-africa

### Introduction In March 2020, a global pandemic was declared by the World Health Organization due to the Covid-19 virus outbreak. As a result, the South African Government imposed a National Lockdown which prohibited individuals from leaving their homes except under strictly controlled circumtances to reduce the transmission of the virus. In that same year, according to the Global Peace Index (GPI) produced by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) (visionofhumanity.org), South Africa went up from the 127th safest country in the world to the 123rd. Though this ranking has been as a result of several known factors, a very prominent one is the Rate of Crime in the Country which has been quite rampant in the past few years and consumes as much as 19% of the Country's GDP which is about $ 67 billion per annum.(managementstudyguide.com). #### The Following will be achieved in this project: Analyse the changes in the crime distribution in South Africa. Has there been a significant change in South Africa's crime rate? If so, we determine the hypothetical reason behind it. * Determine if there is a correlation between the total number of police stations in a province compared to the total amount of crimes and the total amount of crimes committed compared to the population and density of a Province * Determine if there is a correlation between the Covid-19 Lockdown and South Africas crime rate in the year 2020/21 by comparing the rate in 2020/21 to the historical data and then identifying the time period with significant increase/decrease. Did the Lockdown permit for more crimes to be committed or did it reduce the number of crimes in the country? What crimes had a significant increase/decrease, and what could have been the cause? * Create a Regression Model using Machine Learning to predict the expected crime rate without the influence of the Covid-1 …