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Crime mapping is used by analysts inlaw enforcement agencies to map, visualize, and analyze crime incident patterns. It is a key component ofcrime analysis and theCompStat policing strategy. Mapping crime, usingGeographic Information Systems (GIS), allows crime analysts to identifycrime hot spots, along with other trends and patterns.
Using GIS, crime analysts can overlay other datasets such ascensusdemographics, locations ofpawn shops, schools, etc., to better understand the underlying causes ofcrime and helplaw enforcement administrators to devise strategies to deal with the problem. GIS is also useful for law enforcement operations, such as allocating police officers and dispatching toemergencies.[1]
Underlying theories that help explain spatial behavior of criminals includeenvironmental criminology, which was devised in the 1980s by Patricia and Paul Brantingham,[2]routine activity theory, developed by Lawrence Cohen and Marcus Felson and originally published in 1979,[3] andrational choice theory, developed by Ronald V. Clarke and Derek Cornish, originally published in 1986.[4] In recent years, crime mapping and analysis has incorporated spatial data analysis techniques that addstatistical rigor and address inherent limitations of spatial data, including spatialautocorrelation and spatial heterogeneity. Spatial data analysis helps one analyze crime data and better understand why and not just where crime is occurring.
Research into computer-based crime mapping started in 1986, when theNational Institute of Justice (NIJ) funded a project in theChicago Police Department to explore crime mapping as an adjunct tocommunity policing. That project was carried out by the CPD in conjunction with the Chicago Alliance for Neighborhood Safety, theUniversity of Illinois at Chicago, andNorthwestern University, reported on in the book,Mapping Crime in Its Community Setting: Event Geography Analysis.[5] The success of this project prompted NIJ to initiate the Drug Market Analysis Program (with the appropriate acronym D-MAP) in five cities, and the techniques these efforts developed led to the spread of crime mapping throughout the US and elsewhere, including theNew York City Police Department'sCompStat.
Crime analysts use crime mapping and analysis to help law enforcement management (e.g. the police chief) to make better decisions, target resources, and formulate strategies, as well as for tactical analysis (e.g. crime forecasting,geographic profiling).New York City does this through theCompStat approach, though that way of thinking deals more with the short term. There are other, related approaches with terms including Information-led policing,Intelligence-led policing,Problem-oriented policing, andCommunity policing. In some law enforcement agencies, crime analysts work in civilian positions, while in other agencies, crime analysts are sworn officers.
From a research andpolicy perspective, crime mapping is used to understand patterns ofincarceration andrecidivism, help target resources and programs, evaluatecrime prevention or crime reduction programs (e.g. Project Safe Neighborhoods, Weed & Seed and as proposed inFixing Broken Windows[6]), and further understanding of causes of crime.
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