Crime Mapping and the Training Needs of Law Enforcement

Summary:
Ratcliffe's article Crime Mapping and the Training Needs of Law Enforcement identifies three main aspects of crime mapping, or applications of geographic information systems (GIS): hotspot mapping, CompStat and geographic profiling. Techniques in exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA) can reveal crime patterns and hotspots of criminal activity that are invaluable to law enforcement agencies. Spatio-temporal mapping and geographic profiling using the GIS methodology is an evolving technique with increasing complexity and can offer vital information for intelligence-led policing in crime reduction and prevention. Ratcliffe mentions that although this technique offers a new form of useful intelligence for law enforcement, it does not undermine non-spatial features of crime records such as modus operandi and temporal variables.

The author defines crime mapping as a way to collect, store, analyze and disseminate information relating to the earth. The first application of GIS in law enforcement is hotspot mapping. This is the input and conversion of crime data into spatial features. The following two images are examples of hotspot mapping of vehicle crimes in Philadelphia for July 2002. In the following two images, Image 1 demonstrates how hotspot mapping appears when each individual crime is represented as a dot while Image 2 shows the same image after using kernel density smoothing. Image 2 is less precise but more clearly displays the actual hotspots.

Image 1:

Image 2:

Although GIS is most frequently used to map property and violent crime, it can also geographically represent calls for service, race and other socio-economic data for a more complex analytical map. It is also effective at demonstrating measurable long-term crime prevention and reduction.

The second application of GIS is CompStat, or Computer Statistics. This is a management process that increases accountability and requires commanders to actively analyze crime patterns. As the author states, it requires a quick conversion of crime data to geographic visuals of the data. The third and final application is geographic profiling, an investigative technique that aids in serial crimes and helps to identify potential criminals on a map. The idea was developed from a combination of theories, including the routine activity theory and rational choice theory that suggest that people develop a daily routine and through knowledge of such a routine, police can identify key nodes for offenders in certain locations. This is helpful in suspect prioritization and patrol saturation.

Ratcliffe claims that while GIS is evolving rapidly and is a crucial element to law enforcement intelligence, agencies are not devoting enough time to training their officers and analysts. He believes that while the number of agencies using it is increasing, many still do not understand its importance and application to policing and are sticking to the traditional policing techniques that they are familiar with.

Critique:
Ratcliffe's article effectively demonstrates the important of geographic information systems application in law enforcement. The identification and explanation of three aspects of crime mapping was beneficial and their usefulness in the field was evident. He explicitly mentions that geographic profiling produces a map of risk which demonstrates visually the likelihood of criminal activity, the main purpose of intelligence analysis. Through crime mapping, risk can be reduced for a decision-maker.

The author states many limitations to GIS, however. Hotspot mapping has issues with points that overlap, human inability to define clusters and the difficult of establishing broad trends. Some of these concerns are reduced through additional extensions of GIS programs, but the issue of data overload is nevertheless cumbersome. Additionally, geographic profiling is believed to have limitations for some offender types which may have negative implications for risk reduction. Among these were implicit limitations as well, including GIS's ever-evolving nature which makes it difficult for analysts to continuously learn the updates and for new practitioners to enter the field.

While Ratcliffe's article was useful, he redirected to many outside sources rather than including the information within the actual article which made it seem somewhat incomplete. Elaborating further on the three applications of GIS, offering potential solutions to issues in training and explaining the limitations further would have solidified his argument.

Source:
Ratcliffe, J. H. (2004). Crime mapping and the training needs of law enforcement. European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research, 10(1), 65-83. Retrieved from http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.107.2771

Crossing the Borders of Crime: Factors Influencing the Utility and Practicality of Interjurisdictional Crime Mapping

Introduction:
John Eck's article Crossing the Borders of Crime: Factors Influencing the Utility and Practicality of Interjurisdictional Crime Mapping provides a look into five different categories of factors that influence the utility of crime mapping, particularly Cross Boundary Crime Mapping Systems (CBCMS). These categories are action, patterns, data, administration, and access, and are listed in descending importance according to the author (Eck 2002, p.3). The article reviews factors that affect the utility of inter-jurisdictional crime mapping specifically but many of these factors affect the utility of crime mapping as a methodology in general.

Summary: 
Crime mapping has grown as a methodology employed by a large number of law enforcement agencies especially as technology has developed further to increase capabilities while lowering expense. Like all methodologies, crime mapping relies on certain factors to be useful. Eck identifies five categories and the specific factors involved that determine the utility of crime mapping, particularly in terms of CBCMS. The first category, action, asks what will agencies use the information from the CBCMS for and will they take action to address the crime patterns they discover? Crime mapping and particularly CBCMS are of little utility if agencies never act on the results, which Eck (2002) points is all too common (p.4).

The patterns category identified by Eck is most applicable to CBCMS, with little influence on the utility of crime mapping in general because patterns fall into the categories of no pattern, no shared pattern, shared patterns, shared boundary problems, barrier borders, attracting borders, pseudo barriers, and common problems. While no patterns would prove crime mapping in any case rather useless, the pattern or lack thereof can only be determined after crime mapping is performed.

Data, on the other hand, has many factors that affect the utility of crime mapping in any situation, given that any methodology will fail if data is inaccurate or irrelevant. Data used in crime mapping must include information describing specific locations, incident types, and dates of occurrence (Eck 2002, p.2). This data is affected by citizens reporting, agency recording, event classification, descriptive information, and geocoding. Almost all of these can be attributed to human error.

The final two categories, administration and data dissemination, are closely related and rely on who decides how and when information is shared. While this seems most applicable to CBCMS, who governs crime mapping within a single agency will still affect its utility and application.

Critique:
While Eck's article falls lower on the Pyramid of Evidence (refer to Source and Methods), his article is important in understand the utility of crime mapping as a methodology, particularly in the law enforcement intelligence field. As stated before, while his intent was to identify those factors affecting the utility of CBCMS, factors such as data accuracy and action taken upon results certainly affect the value of crime mapping more generally. The article would be strengthened with case study or experimental results, however, the jurisdictional mapping examples provided strengthen the patterns sections significantly.

In terms of the methodology itself, crime mapping is heavily reliant on analysts avoiding common human errors, some of which are not within their control. For instance, a crime analyst cannot easily affect the frequency that citizens report crimes. Additionally, crime maps that only include arrest data as opposed to incident data will be greatly skewed to where agencies have the most manpower, not necessarily the areas with the most crime. Aside from data, crime mapping, like many other methodologies, suffers when its results go unused. If crime mapping is performed strictly to identify locations of past crimes without anyone using the results to predict future crime or other methods of addressing the underlying problem, the methodology is of little utility in the intelligence field.

Source:
Eck, J. (2002, January). Crossing the Borders of Crime: Factors Influencing the Utility and Practicality of Interjurisdictional Crime Mapping. Overcoming the Barriers: Crime mapping in the 21st Century. Retrieved from http://www.policefoundation.org/sites/pftest1.drupalgardens.com/files/Eck%20(2002)%20-%20Crossing%20the%20Borders%20of%20Crime.pdf 

The History of Crime Mapping and Its Use by American Police Departments

Summary:

     In an article published in 2006 in the Alaska Justice Forum, Sharon Chamard discusses the history of crime mapping, the advantages and disadvantages of computerized crime mapping, and the decreasing number of police departments that are conducting crime mapping analysis.

     Crime mapping can trace its origins back to 1829 France, when Adriano Balbi and Andre Michel Guerry created maps that showed the relationship between education levels and violent crimes. By the mid-19th century that practice had made its way over to England and Wales, where the techniques was applied to other types of crimes. In the early 1900s, the University of Chicago started using the technique for various studies. The maps that were produced could be 70 feet in length and take many hours in meticulous work to color in areas or put thousands of dots representing points of interest. Crime mapping was not widely adopted until the late 1980s, when desktop computers became widely available to police departments.
     While computers have made the use of crime mapping easier and more widely adopted, there are still issues with it. Chamard cites the learning curve of mapping software, specifically ArcView and MapInfo as an issue, especially in departments that have a relatively low number of personnel. There are also issues of integrating crime mapping into the normal department routine. A third issue is that the majority of departments using the technology for crime mapping end up using the software to create pin maps and hot spot maps, both of which are at the low end of analysis. Analysis above these levels requires some knowledge of cartography and GIS, which the majority of police departments lack.
     The last issue Chamard examines is why a large number of departments stop using this technique. A study  by Chamard from 1997 to 1999 found that of 615 departments that reported using crime mapping, 242 had stopped using it by 1999. The study found that department size was the best predictor of discontinuance. Departments with less than 250 sworn officers were much more likely to discontinue crime mapping than departments with more than 250. Issues with crime mapping that were specifically stated ranged from software issues, issues obtaining current maps, and a lack of benefit using the technique.

Critique:

     The most noticeable issue with Charmden's paper is that it does not go into detail on the utility of the technique. She cites issues that departments have had in implementing crime mapping with computers, which is almost a moot point considering the alternative of utilizing the technique without computers. She also discusses interesting studies showing that a large number of departments that have used crime mapping in the past have stopped. She lists various reasons why this is happening, but she never once goes into the effectiveness of the technique. Granted that this paper is not aimed at explaining the merits of crime mapping, but it would have been helpful, especially since she hints at its use if properly used.    
     Charmden's studies of why departments have stopped utilizing the technique present two problems with crime mapping. The first is that the benefits of the technique do not seem to be fully known. This can be attributed to the learning curve of the software and the technical expertise that most departments lack. Departments with more personnel have larger budgets, meaning of they do not directly hire someone with the expertise to use the software, they can at least afford to send interested personnel to classes, giving them the technical expertise. This would also allow deeper analysis past the pin maps and hot spot maps that are commonly created. By effectively utilizing deeper analysis, the ability for crime maps to eliminate uncertainty would increase, demonstrating their usefulness.
     The second issue with crime mapping is that it might not be applicable to all departments. While the technique can be applied to cities, the same might not be said for suburban and rural areas. These areas are normally larger, with more spread out crime. These departments are also typically smaller than city departments, meaning that their resources are more limited. With more limited resources and a less centralized area, crime mapping might not be as useful or needed as with urban departments.

Charmden, S. (2006). The History of Crime Mapping and Its Use by American Police Departments. Alaska Justice Forum, 23(4), 4-8, Retrieved from http://justice.uaa.alaska.edu/forum/23/3fall2006/a_crimemapping.html                       

To Map Or Not To Map: Assessing The Impact Of Crime Maps On Police Officer Perceptions Of Crime

To Map Or Not To Map: Assessing The Impact Of Crime Maps On Police Officer Perceptions Of Crime

Summary:

            Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology allows the user to utilize computer-mapping systems to spatially analyze data such as crime incidents (Paulsen, 2004).  The purpose of this software is to spatially analyze information from crime incidents in order for policing efforts to put more resources towards higher at risk areas within their jurisdictions.   Law enforcement highly values crime-mapping technology to conduct intelligence-led policing.  Intelligence-led policing gives law enforcement the ability to act more proactively towards criminal activity.  However, to perform intelligence-led policing requires the law enforcement agency to have an accurate understanding of the crime patterns in their jurisdictions and ability to understand what the crime maps inform the officers about hotspots in their jurisdiction (Paulsen, 2004).  Paulsen (2004) conducted an experiment to evaluate the effects of crime maps on officers’ perceptions of crime patterns and how it affected their patrol activities to perform intelligence- led policing.

                To collect data for the experiment Paulsen (2004) utilized a police department from a post of the Kentucky State Police.  The post of the Kentucky State Police agreed to be apart of the researcher’s program called Tactical Mapping and Analysis Program (TMAP), which provided both police executives and patrol officers with up to date crime maps on crime incidents in their jurisdictions.  The goal was for both groups to use the data provided by the crime maps to lead intelligence-led policing efforts to develop proper strategies in which to target current and emerging crime problems.  Crime maps were able to give daily, weekly, and monthly maps with no lag time for officers of the Kentucky State Police (Paulsen, 2004).    

            To determine police perception of crime and if crime maps influenced their intelligence-led policing efforts Paulsen (2004) used a test and control group, along with pre-test and post-test experimental measures.  Prior to beginning TMAP, the 40 officers in the Kentucky Police Department were split into a test and control group and asked pre-test questions that dealt with their background, sources of main crime information, and perceptions of crime patterns within their jurisdictions (Paulsen, 2004).  Additionally, the officers were given a map of their jurisdiction and were asked to label the five most crime ridden areas.  Officers from the test group received daily, monthly, and weekly crime maps for two months.  After two months Paulsen (2004) analyzed if there were any changes to the spatial perceptions of crime by each group of officers with the use of crime maps over a two-month duration.

            The analysis of the experiment expressed that police officers do not have a good understanding of crime patterns within their respected their jurisdictions, with most only able to identify two of the top five highest crime areas in their jurisdiction (Paulsen, 2004).   As compared to the control group who didn’t receive crime maps, those officers who did receive crime maps proved no more accurate than those officers who were not given crime maps over the duration of the two month study to identify the highest area of crime within their jurisdictions (Paulsen, 2004).    

Critique:

            The study conducted by Paulsen (2004) expressed that intelligence-led policing efforts that utilize the information displayed with crime mapping software does very little to guide intelligence efforts to shape jurisdiction policing strategies if officers are not educated on how to properly use these sources.  Just giving officers crime maps does not give them the analytical skills necessary to interpret what is presented in the crime maps and apply it to intelligence-led policing efforts.  Furthermore, the study suggests that the culture surrounding police officers’ perception of where high-risk crime areas are located is highly engrained in the studied patrol officers’ daily experiences of patrolling and officers demonstrated an unwillingness to acknowledge what the analyzed data of crime maps conveys.  Moreover, it is necessary that police officers are educated on the proper analytical techniques to understand crime maps.  For intelligence-led policing to be effective it must go beyond the officers perceptions of what the real threat is in their jurisdictions and a proper analysis of crime maps will allow officers to be more successful in their intelligence gathering and policing efforts.

            However, even though the study conducted by Paulsen (2004) expressed important implications of the use of crime mapping among patrolling officers and its effect on the successfulness of intelligence-led policing, the results should be taken with some speculation.  The police agency that was used as a sample for this study was mostly in a rural area of Kentucky.  A future study would be needed to determine if crime mapping practices are different in urban areas and if police perceptions of where high crime areas are incorrect in urban areas as well.   Moreover, a larger sample size and pulling officers from different areas of the country would be needed to provide increased support for the outcome of the experiment.  Predominantly, the states in the south of the United States have higher crime rates so it would be interesting to conduct this experiment comparing law enforcement in northern and southern states and their perceptions of where the hotspots of crime are in their respected jurisdictions. 

            Lastly, it is important to affirm that this study did not avow police officers were less effective with their current understanding and utilization of crime maps, or that with crime maps intelligence-led policing increased the effectiveness of the police agency.  However, in terms of the benefits of intelligence-led policing the study delved into the possibility that it is a much-needed intelligence gathering strategy for law enforcement agencies to implement to be able to combat not just current crime issues, but emerging risks in their jurisdictions.  Properly analyzing trends will allow law enforcement agencies with the ability to make crime analysis that is future orientated, the main goal of intelligence gathering allowing for a reduction of uncertainty for law enforcement decision-makers.    

Source:

Paulsen, Derek J. (2004). To Map Or Not To Map: Assessing The Impact Of Crime Maps On Police Officer Perceptions of Crime. International Journal of Police Science & Management, 6(4), 234-246.  Retrieved from http://ehis.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?sid=75d3db08-d830-49d4-831c-47050e61df7b%40sessionmgr10&vid=1&hid=3&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=a9h&AN=15073048 

Implementing and Integrating Crime Mapping into a Police Intelligence Environment

Summary:

Digitalization of police records such as crime records and service calls may provide decision makers with important information regarding crimes trends, series, and patterns.  Crime mapping is technique that coordinates and enhances the analysis of crime data already in the possession of law enforcement agencies.  Crime mapping combines multiple intelligence resources to establish a unify structure that improves data analysis at a low cost.  Geographic information system (GIS) assists in the mapping as well as in the geographical analysis of known crime records and service calls.  GIS relies on geocoding, a method that references incident location to be mapped within a GIS.      

One disadvantage of crime mapping is that only does it require a large volume of information in order to be effective, but also the information must be retrieved from police data bases.  In addition, the data must be processed into a format that is acceptable by the GIS.  Often police databases are incompatible with GIS software which also poses difficulties coordinating the data.     

The most common analytical paths of crime mapping include geographical profiling of repeated offenders and mapping of high volume crime.  The figure one depicts the three inputs required for spatial crime analysis; a GIS, crime data, and digital maps.  While serial repeated offender crimes are analyzed by analysts with specialized training related to a certain crime, high volume crimes are analyzed by divisional analysts.                          

Serial crime investigations or criminal profiling assume that offenders commit crimes in area they are most familiar with and away from their home address.  Hence crime mapping is useful to determine the likely area of residence belonging to these offenders.  A specialist analyst is needed to perform the analysis due to the sensitive nature of these offenses.  High volume analysis focuses on local areas or division, demands of this type of analysis varies depending on local crime rates.  This type of crime mapping is restricted to geographical boundaries. 

In UK, crime mapping has been applied to drug incidents, gang violence, and serial rapist investigations.  While crime mapping can assist law enforcement authorities in formulating crime reduction strategies, it is also prone to implementation issues.  Due to the highly technical nature of crime mapping, police department may have to employ skilled IT professionals.  Often these professionals do not understand the user requirements associated with crime mapping.  Thus, of the 52 police forces in the UK, only 23 forces had crime mapping capabilities at the divisional level.  Crime mapping is more effective in a decentralized environment where the user-implementation is more prominent.                        

Critique:

This article is unique in that it focuses on law enforcement intelligence analysis from a former police officer’s perspective.  Hence, the author is familiar with the subject matter which adds more credibility to the content presented on this article.  Although the author’s focus is on the UK police departments and how crime mapping is likely to be beneficial for them, crime mapping can be utilized as a universal tool to identify crime trends and series in any part of the world.  Crime occurs everywhere to varying degrees.  Crime mapping has the potential to assist decision makers with formulating strategies to combat crime.  Crime mapping can also serve as a visual tool for identifying crime trends and patterns.  A police department with a good budget and enough experts can easily adopt this method.  However, it is likely to be more beneficial for areas with high crime rates.  Serial crimes are rare in occurrence and these crime trends are more easily identified than high volume crime.  I’m unfamiliar with the cost of maintaining this type of analytic tool (GIS), but it may not be worth the money to adopt this technique to analyze serial crimes.   

The author identified a number of advantages and disadvantages to adopting crime mapping as an analytical tool.  Most disadvantages arose from difficulties in processing data before it is entered into the GIS software and having to employ IT professionals to maintain the GIS software.  This article is a bit outdated as it was published in 2000.  It seems crime mapping was in it early stages of development in 2000.  Due to technological advances within the past 13 years, it is likely that crime mapping has become more automated in the early stages of analysis, while the later stages of analysis is conducted by experts.  Also, in recent years most organizations have maintained IT departments.  Therefore, it is safe to assume that police departments may not have to create an IT department just to maintain the software.            

Although GIS software is capable of analyzing data across jurisdictions, I agree with the author in terms of utilizing crime mapping to organize and analyze data at local or divisional levels.   If GIS is used to analyze crime patterns across a number of jurisdictions, the final out put is highly likely to be effected by the amount of communication between police departments and the amount of crime data shared between police departments.  For the past few months, I have learned that in the United States there is a lack of intelligence sharing and lack of communication between agencies in the intelligence community.  Assuming that this is true of law enforcement agencies in the United States, GIS is more beneficial for analyzing local crime data.  However, it is important to emphasize that this is not a limitation in the crime mapping technique, but rather a limitation created by human error.             

Source: 
Ratcliffe, J. (1999). Implementing and Integrating Crime Mapping into a Police Intelligence environment. International Journal of Police Science & Management, 2(4), 313-323. Retrieved from http://www.jratcliffe.net/papers/Ratcliffe (2000) Implementing and integrating crime mapping.pdfhttp://www.jratcliffe.net/papers/Ratcliffe (2000) Implementing and integrating crime mapping.pdf