Crime Mapping and the Crimestat Program

Law enforcement currently has a strong crime mapping function where police analysts map out general crime patterns to predict where crimes may occur and predict specific offenders. In 1996 the National Institute of Justice developed a crime mapping unit using GIS technology. This tool was used also inside police cars as they could see exactly where to go.

Crimestat contains crime incident locations (robbery locations, motor vehicle crashes, etc) that is able to interface with GIS programs allowing law enforcement agencies and criminal justice investigators a statistical tool to which they could point out possible crimes.

The following map shows hot sports of DWI crashes. The map shows first order and second order standard deviational ellipses. The first order clusters group the car crashes, while the second order groups the first order clusters. Accidents occur in small clusters, so police know usually where these incidents tend to occur and are prepared. 

Levine, N. (2006). Crime mapping and the Crimestat program. Geographical analysis, 38(1), 41-56.