The power of geography
Spencer Chainey
Director of Geographic Information Science
The Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science, UCL
Introduction
• Crime has an inherent
geography
– Offender offending at a place
– Environment from where offenders
and victims come from (live/work)
– Spatial movement that leads to them
coming together
• Do we really understand the
geography of crime?
• If we better understood this
geography,
– Improve opportunities for reducing
crime and the effectiveness of policing
The power of geography
• Response and
dispatch
• Data collection
– Location details
• Gazetteer (e.g. Dumfries
and Galloway)
– Mobile computing
• Location details (GPS or
gazetteer)
The power of geography
• Partnerships and information sharing
• Data integration – geography acting as the common denominator
The power of geography
• Measure and analysis
– Identifying hotspots
(police patrols, Audits,
young offenders)
The power of geography
Pool of suspects
• Measure and analysis
Address
Age
– Investigations (e.g.
geographic profiling)
Behaviour
The power of geography
• Spatial
movement
– All the offenders
come from outside
our area?
The power of geography
1800
50% of offenders
travelled less then
1.5km
1600
1400
Count
1200
1000
800
600
400
200
0
0
1
2
3
4
5
Distance (km)
6
7
8
9
The power of geography
The power of geography
• Measure and
analysis
– Exploring relationships
(e.g. repeat victimisation
and deprivation, self
selection)
Deprivation
level
Number of
repeats
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
40
56
61
75
96
118
118
185
175
202
Self selection:
-1 in 5 of those parking illegally in disabled parking bays have a previous
criminal record and are of current interest to the police
- bus and train fare evaders, TV Licencing?
The power of geography
• Measure and
analysis
– Targeting new
initiatives (e.g.
burglary reduction
programme, fear of
crime, community
tensions)
Making use of the power of geography
• Crime and Disorder Audit Year
– Maps help to present the picture of crime and disorder in
your local district
• Hotspot analysis
– Improving the targeting and allocation of resources
• Rich era of geographic information
– Census
– Index of Deprivation 2004
– Local Land and Property Gazetteers
Increasing the power of geography
• Data collection
– Standardising address and location entry using the NLPG (to avoid
costly and difficult geocoding)
– Understanding the role that GPS can play
• Hotspot analysis – hotspot accuracy - better statistics
– E.g. Using retrospective statistics to plan for the future?
• Exploring relationships
– Often been prevented by lack of good quality data, but more of this
now becoming available (e.g. land use)
• Modelling scenarios (e.g. early warning systems, neighbourhood
renewal, brownfield site developments, new entertainment complexes)
Why does crime mapping matter?
• Geography – common denominator in
many partnership datasets
• Geography inherent in all crime
• Need to understand the spatial
dimension
– Help to catch criminals more quickly
– Improve strategies for policing, community safety
and crime reduction