Gut Feelings, Crime Data and Gis

Identifying locations susceptible to crime and the reasons for its occurrence have often been based on the "gut" feelings of police officers and others involved. As a result, those crimes where offences are highly visible may be over policed, whereas those locations truly requiring attention, receive little. In order for crime mapping to be truly meaningful the data held by police should not be the only data that informs the maps. Rather, information on the "spatial neighbourhood" involving physical, environmental and social factors can be used to detect interesting relationships and crime pattern information that may either confirm or disprove the "gut" feelings. This paper will examine how such "neighbourhoods" can be identified.