How can GIS support crime reduction?
One of the key benefits of using modern GIS rather than traditional digital mapping systems is the ability to layer different data together onto a map and analyse relationships between those layers. You can use this data to build up detailed patterns of crime, taking into account factors such as time of day, day of the week, demographic impacts, repeat targets and so on. By overlaying the data, patterns of crime become clearer and can start to inform decision makers, supporting a problem-focused approach to policing. In the past a map would be used to place a crime and that was it. Now officers use our CrimeAnalyst software to plot crimes then plot time and days of the week, building up a temporal data clock (see image at bottom of page), that shows which times of day have the most crimes, and perhaps more uniquely, where small pockets of anomalous data occur. Not only is this more detailed it is also easier to break down and easier to present in the form of graphs or charts, often bro
