There's been a lot of debate lately about whether it's good or bad for the local law enforcement agencies to receive military surplus items. The data has recently become available, but it is just a big long text list of almost a quarter million items (see below). Therefore I thought I would use SAS software to analyze the list, and determine which counties received one of the biggest and most visible items, Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles (MRAPs).
After analyzing the data, I found that only 5 of the 100 counties in my state (North Carolina) got an MRAP, and the county where the SAS headquarters is located (Wake County) did not receive one. Wake County, by comparison, went the other route - rather than using a large intimidating "shock & awe" military vehicle, Wake County has a Z06 Corvette patrol car :)
But enough about my county ... what about your county! The question at hand - did your county get one of the MRAPs?? Here's my SAS map that will help you find out! Click the snapshot below to see the full-size map, with html mouse-over text so you can see the county names:
So, did your county get an MRAP? Have you seen it in person yet? Would you have known which counties in your state have them, without looking at this SAS map? Sometimes I think I make this data analysis stuff too easy on you! LOL
4 Comments
Will need to send this to my Dad, who resides in Erie County in Western NY. He'll be pleased as punch to know that his tax dollars are going towards this investment.
LOL - Yep! And even receiving a free MRAP isn't cheap! I think they have to pay transportation costs to get it there, and then have a place to store it, and have people trained to maintain & use it :)
I love reading your blog and really enjoy the way you showcase what can be done graphically in SAS. I'd like to try doing a similar county map of the US for some data I have, would you mind sharing the code you used to make this?
I *love* when people re-use my code with their own data! Here's a link to the code... http://robslink.com/SAS/democd73/leso_mrap_info.htm