| Criminology |
|---|
 |
| Main Theories |
| Methods |
| Subfields and other major theories |
| Browse |
Crime mapping is used by analysts in law enforcement agencies to map, visualize, and analyze crime incident patterns. It is a key component of crime analysis and the CompStat policing strategy. Mapping crime, using Geographic Information Systems (GIS), allows crime analysts to identify crime hot spots, along with other trends and patterns.
Using GIS, crime analysts can overlay other datasets such as census demographics, locations of pawn shops, schools, etc., to better understand the underlying causes of crime and help law 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 to emergencies. [1]
Underlying theories that help explain spatial behavior of criminals include environmental 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] and rational 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 add statistical rigor and address inherent limitations of spatial data, including spatial autocorrelation 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 the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) funded a project in the Chicago Police Department to explore crime mapping as an adjunct to community policing. That project was carried out by the CPD in conjunction with the Chicago Alliance for Neighborhood Safety, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Northwestern 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 the New York City Police Department's CompStat.
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 the CompStat 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, and Community policing. In some law enforcement agencies, crime analysts work in civilian positions, while in other agencies, crime analysts are sworn officers.
From a research and policy perspective, crime mapping is used to understand patterns of incarceration and recidivism, help target resources and programs, evaluate crime prevention or crime reduction programs (e.g. Project Safe Neighborhoods, Weed & Seed and as proposed in Fixing Broken Windows [6] ), and further understanding of causes of crime.
A geographic information system (GIS) consists of integrated computer hardware and software that store, manage, analyze, edit, output, and visualize geographic data. Much of this often happens within a spatial database, however, this is not essential to meet the definition of a GIS. In a broader sense, one may consider such a system also to include human users and support staff, procedures and workflows, the body of knowledge of relevant concepts and methods, and institutional organizations.
Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc., doing business as Esri, is an American multinational geographic information system (GIS) software company headquartered in Redlands, California. It is best known for its ArcGIS products. With a 40% market share, Esri is the world's leading supplier of GIS software, web GIS and geodatabase management applications.
The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) is the research, development and evaluation agency of the United States Department of Justice.
Geographic profiling is a criminal investigative methodology that analyzes the locations of a connected series of crimes to determine the most probable area of offender residence. By incorporating both qualitative and quantitative methods, it assists in understanding spatial behaviour of an offender and focusing the investigation to a smaller area of the community. Typically used in cases of serial murder or rape, the technique helps police detectives prioritize information in large-scale major crime investigations that often involve hundreds or thousands of suspects and tips.
ArcGIS is a family of client, server and online geographic information system (GIS) software developed and maintained by Esri.
Environmental criminology focuses on criminal patterns within particular built environments and analyzes the impacts of these external variables on people's cognitive behavior. It forms a part of criminology's Positivist School in that it applies the scientific method to examine the society that causes crime.
Michael D. Maltz is an American electrical engineer, criminologist and Emeritus Professor at University of Illinois at Chicago in criminal justice, and adjunct professor and researcher at Ohio State University.
Crime analysis is a law enforcement function that involves systematic analysis for identifying and analyzing patterns and trends in crime and disorder. Information on patterns can help law enforcement agencies deploy resources in a more effective manner, and assist detectives in identifying and apprehending suspects. Crime analysis also plays a role in devising solutions to crime problems, and formulating crime prevention strategies. Quantitative social science data analysis methods are part of the crime analysis process, though qualitative methods such as examining police report narratives also play a role.
Right realism, in criminology, also known as New Right Realism, Neo-Classicism, Neo-Positivism, or Neo-Conservatism, is the ideological polar opposite of left realism. It considers the phenomenon of crime from the perspective of political conservatism and asserts that it takes a more realistic view of the causes of crime and deviance, and identifies the best mechanisms for its control. Unlike the other schools of criminology, there is less emphasis on developing theories of causality in relation to crime and deviance. The school employs a rationalist, direct and scientific approach to policy-making for the prevention and control of crime. Some politicians who ascribe to the perspective may address aspects of crime policy in ideological terms by referring to freedom, justice, and responsibility. For example, they may be asserting that individual freedom should only be limited by a duty not to use force against others. This, however, does not reflect the genuine quality in the theoretical and academic work and the real contribution made to the nature of criminal behaviour by criminologists of the school.
In criminology, rational choice theory adopts a utilitarian belief that humans are reasoning actors who weigh means and ends, costs and benefits, in order to make a rational choice. This method was designed by Cornish and Clarke to assist in thinking about situational crime prevention.
In business intelligence, location intelligence (LI), or spatial intelligence, is the process of deriving meaningful insight from geospatial data relationships to solve a particular problem. It involves layering multiple data sets spatially and/or chronologically, for easy reference on a map, and its applications span industries, categories and organizations.
Distributed GIS refers to GI Systems that do not have all of the system components in the same physical location. This could be the processing, the database, the rendering or the user interface. It represents a special case of distributed computing, with examples of distributed systems including Internet GIS, Web GIS, and Mobile GIS. Distribution of resources provides corporate and enterprise-based models for GIS. Distributed GIS permits a shared services model, including data fusion based on Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) web services. Distributed GIS technology enables modern online mapping systems, Location-based services (LBS), web-based GIS and numerous map-enabled applications. Other applications include transportation, logistics, utilities, farm / agricultural information systems, real-time environmental information systems and the analysis of the movement of people. In terms of data, the concept has been extended to include volunteered geographical information. Distributed processing allows improvements to the performance of spatial analysis through the use of techniques such as parallel processing.
CrimeView is a crime analysis, mapping and reporting software extension to ArcGIS. It is designed for the detailed study of patterns of crime as they relate to geography and time.
CrimeAnalyst is an extension for ArcGIS Desktop, a suite of geographic information system (GIS) software products. It provides added functionality for crime analysis and crime mapping. CrimeAnalyst is produced by ESRI (UK).
CrimeStat is a crime mapping software program. CrimeStat is Windows-based program that conducts spatial and statistical analysis and is designed to interface with a geographic information system (GIS). The program is developed by Ned Levine & Associates under the direction of Ned Levine, with funding by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), an agency of the United States Department of Justice. The program and manual are distributed for free by NIJ.
Geographic information systems (GIS) play a constantly evolving role in geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) and United States national security. These technologies allow a user to efficiently manage, analyze, and produce geospatial data, to combine GEOINT with other forms of intelligence collection, and to perform highly developed analysis and visual production of geospatial data. Therefore, GIS produces up-to-date and more reliable GEOINT to reduce uncertainty for a decisionmaker. Since GIS programs are Web-enabled, a user can constantly work with a decision maker to solve their GEOINT and national security related problems from anywhere in the world. There are many types of GIS software used in GEOINT and national security, such as Google Earth, ERDAS IMAGINE, GeoNetwork opensource, and Esri ArcGIS.
Geospatial topology is the study and application of qualitative spatial relationships between geographic features, or between representations of such features in geographic information, such as in geographic information systems (GIS). For example, the fact that two regions overlap or that one contains the other are examples of topological relationships. It is thus the application of the mathematics of topology to GIS, and is distinct from, but complementary to the many aspects of geographic information that are based on quantitative spatial measurements through coordinate geometry. Topology appears in many aspects of geographic information science and GIS practice, including the discovery of inherent relationships through spatial query, vector overlay and map algebra; the enforcement of expected relationships as validation rules stored in geospatial data; and the use of stored topological relationships in applications such as network analysis. Spatial topology is the generalization of geospatial topology for non-geographic domains, e.g., CAD software.
Crime hotspots are areas that have high crime intensity. These are usually visualized using a map. They are developed for researchers and analysts to examine geographic areas in relation to crime. Researchers and theorists examine the occurrence of hotspots in certain areas and why they happen, and analysts examine the techniques used to perform the research. Developing maps that contain hotspots are becoming a critical and influential tool for policing; they help develop knowledge and understanding of different areas in a city and possibly why crime occurs there.
A Crime concentration is a spatial area to which high levels of crime incidents are attributed. A crime concentration can be the result of homogeneous or heterogeneous crime incidents. Hotspots are the result of various crimes occurring in relative proximity to each other within predefined human geopolitical or social boundaries. Crime concentrations are smaller units or set of crime targets within a hotspot. A single or a conjunction of crime concentrations within a study area can make up a crime hotspot.
Social network analysis in criminology views social relationships in terms of network theory, consisting of nodes and ties. These networks are often depicted in a social network diagram, where nodes are represented as vertices and ties are represented as edges.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)