“By using crime mapping, it’s possible to put law enforcement where they’re needed most,” he says, noting that police departments in most major cities use federal databases of incident reports to plot clusters of criminal activity on local maps. “We’re now seeing in many cities where they have advanced crime-mapping tools, they have had a decrease in violent crime—even though they have economic problems.”
NIJ’s Mapping and Analysis for Public Safety Program allows police to plug in crime locations on a map that indicates where the culprits are likely to strike next. The tool is available for free online at www.icpsr.umich.edu /nacjd/crimestat.html.
Similarly, the FBI publishes a Uniform Crime Report, a collection of crime data from 17,000 law enforcement agencies nationwide. The reports, which reveal crime clusters in states, cities, and counties, are available for free at www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm.
Still, Temple University Professor George Rengert says the best way to predict crime within a complex or a high-rise building might be to track the incidents that occur on-site. A study of high-rise dormitories, he notes, revealed that crime tends to cluster around elevators, in public restrooms, and in lobbies—but not just on a single floor. A hallway robbery in one location on one floor could signal the potential for a crime in the same location on another level, a phenomenon he calls “stack crimes.”
Morgan agrees and suggests coupling high-tech surveillance efforts with well-trained human resources on the ground. “Put the technology into the context of the realistic expectations for how your security people are going to work,” Morgan advises. “No matter what kind of command post you have, people get tired. Buying 500 cameras to survey an area is almost worthless because nobody can look at all those different cameras at once.”
–Sharon O’Malley is a freelance writer in College Park, Md.
