What is Crime Mapping?
A crime is a spatial event. A crime happens at a place and can usually be described by its type of offence and the date and time when the offence was committed. Why a crime occurs at a particular place may be influenced by the attraction of potential targets at a specific location or the simple geographic convenience for an offender to commit an offence at a particular location. To help understand where and why crimes occur, maps of crime events can often help in the targeting, deployment and allocation of crime prevention resources to areas of vulnerability. Maps showing patterns or hotspots of crime can present effective visual images that help people understand their distribution, and explore possible reasons behind certain types of criminal activity (Tomlin, 1990).
Quotes about Crime Mapping
"Crime mapping and other information-age tools are changing the face of law enforcement in the United States"
Former US Vice President Al Gore (July 1999).
"Crime Mapping technologies are a wonderful tool to help law enforcement agencies get one step ahead of the criminals and help prevent crimes before they are committed,"
US Attorney General Janet Reno (July 1999).
What Crimes Mapping does?
The analysis and mapping of crime data can demonstrate "hot spots" of criminal activity or illustrate densities of crime in a prescribed geographic area. It can demonstrate the effectiveness of a particular police activity or point to the need for a different approach. It can identify specific neighborhood characteristics that predispose residents to criminal activities. Artificial intelligence and neural network systems can analyze large databases of information and recognize complex patterns that are impractical and cost prohibitive for humans to attempt (Smith, 1986).
Criminal justice agencies have recorded information for decades. However, searching through thousands of unrelated bits of information to....
