CRIME MAPPING: NEW TOOLS FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT

Vol. 13 No. 12 (December 2003)

CRIME MAPPING: NEW TOOLS FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT by Irvin B. Vann and G. David Garson. New York: Peter Lang, 2003. 149 pp. Paper $19.95. ISBN: 0-8204-5785-X.

Reviewed by Jason E. Schuknecht, Westat, Rockville, Maryland.

Irvin B. Vann and G. David Garson's CRIME MAPPING: NEW TOOLS FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT offers an easily accessible overview of current applications of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to crime analysis in the United States. The book celebrates the adoption of GIS technologies by a growing number of national and sub-national law enforcement agencies. The crucial idea is that geographic analyses of criminal activity are rapidly evolving from old-fashioned pin maps hanging on police station walls to sophisticated GIS generated heuristics. The authors clearly welcome this innovation, and their text's overarching theme is one of great enthusiasm for the future of GIS in law enforcement and public policy decision making processes. To be sure, CRIME MAPPING is a book primarily about how law enforcement agencies collect, analyze, use, and share GIS data, but it also addresses GIS' considerable potential for democratizing the dissemination of crime information via the internet. For Vann and Garson, GIS' greatest potential may lie in its capacity to usher in a golden age of accessibility to crime information for both public officials and the general public.

Vann and Garson's motivations for writing a book trumpeting the virtues of GIS analyses are readily discernable from the opening pages. The authors are unswerving in their belief that GIS represents the future of spatial crime analysis, and they set out to demonstrate how law enforcement agencies are using GIS technologies. Even with this theme in mind, however, the authors at times seem confused about what they want their book to be-an extensive catalog of current jurisdictional uses of GIS data and applications, a basic GIS primer, or a topical review of normative issues surrounding the use of GIS as a law enforcement tool. The text traipses across each of these topics in rapid succession in several chapters, sometimes obscuring the authors' main points. The occasionally haphazard and repetitive organization of content within chapters suggests that the authors perhaps too strongly attempted to provide as much information as possible to an introductory audience.

That said, CRIME MAPPING supplies a treasure trove of information to readers wishing to explore examples of how law enforcement agencies are making crime information available to the masses. The book references several dozen internet website URLs linking to police department crime maps, federal sources of crime mapping data, and scholars engaged in developing GIS crime mapping applications. Vann and Garson's extensive compilation of online resources is impressive. However, one risk inherent in providing URLs is the ephemeral nature of websites. (An appendix lists fifteen crime mapping resources, but as of late 2003, three links were dead and one other was incorrect.

Because their book is meant to introduce rather than test concepts, Vann and Garson are unencumbered by having to make and defend empirical claims. Arguments concerning the integration of GIS into law enforcement analyses are, for the most part, neither controversial nor testable. Still, an assumption encountered repeatedly throughout the text is that GIS crime analyses are superior to older analytic methods. This may well be so, but one wishes that the authors would explain why they believe this is so and then provide examples. Undergraduate readers raised during the Information Age, who are generally of the impression that electronic or internet-based methods of doing anything are preferable to the old methods, will likely not question this tenet. But to the ancients who preceded the internet, Vann and Garson's assumption, by its fourth or fifth resurrection, may well be viewed as a self-serving hard sell.

Given their aim of showcasing GIS' power to inform public policy decisions, the authors' decision to gloss over important normative arguments is puzzling. They introduce points having the potential to spur lively intellectual debate, but they do not avail themselves of the opportunity to contribute in this sphere. To its credit, the book raises social concerns connected to law enforcement agencies' uses of GIS, including privacy issues (should the public have easy access to sex offenders' names and addresses?) and freedom of information issues (what types of crime information should be available to the public?). However, these concerns are tangential to the authors' purposes and remain underdeveloped. It is disappointing that Chapter 7, titled "Public Concerns with Crime Mapping," is a paltry seven pages in length.

In the same vein, Vann and Garson posit that one of the advantages conferred by crime maps is that they can "provide 'before' and 'after' overviews depicting the effect of a law enforcement intervention that can show if there are ancillary effects, such as displacement of crime to neighborhoods outside the intervention area" (p.10). Unfortunately, the discussion ends here without considering the implications of this GIS application. Is it possible for jurisdictions equipped with GIS capabilities to implement law enforcement policies calculated to shift criminal activity into neighboring jurisdictions? Is this an optimal or desirable use of GIS? This is not to wish that the authors had written a different book, but that they had provided more food for thought for their audience.

One final assumption that Vann and Garson may have carried too far is that the provision of mass access to GIS crime databases guarantees a mass audience. Will online availability of crime statistics, maps, and information create public interest in viewing or downloading these services? This seems to me to be wishful thinking, and the authors provide no statistics detailing the frequency with which crime information websites are visited. Election returns have also been posted online for several years, but this information probably appeals to a small, niche audience. Even after conceding that crime statistics may hold greater relevance for the average citizen than election returns, I as yet remain unconvinced that crime information websites attract more than casual interest from everyday internet surfers. Assuming that access translates into audience, the authors enter into a circular logic-a growing demand for internet access to crime information follows as law enforcement agencies make such data available, and crime data are increasingly being made available because of growing demand for them. I would need to see more evidence of this pent-up demand before wholeheartedly subscribing to this viewpoint.

Vann and Garson richly detail several of the uses law enforcement agencies have found for crime mapping. New York City, Philadelphia, and a number of regional consortia are among those who have successfully incorporated GIS and are reaping benefits. Among GIS' most compelling benefits, the authors note, is its ability to promote an institutional atmosphere in which police are encouraged to pursue proactive rather than reactive strategies to crime. But notably absent is consideration of the fact that GIS analyses by no means supply a magic bullet for law enforcement officials. For example, the recent beltway sniper shootings in the Washington, D.C., area would seem to provide an instance where crime mapping was of limited value to law enforcement officials but provided the local media graphic of choice. These graphics were anything but comforting to a terrified public and their value as predictive tools seemed dubious.

CRIME MAPPING's conversational, mostly non-technical tone is geared toward undergraduates and makes the text a suitable choice for criminal justice, judicial process, and philosophy of law courses. Each chapter concludes with a set of review questions targeted to undergraduate readers. Owing to the text's extensive cataloging of data sources, it would also provide valuable supplemental reading for courses focusing on practical GIS applications. Some graduate and law students may also find value in its presentation of GIS crime fundamentals. However, advanced undergraduates and graduate students already familiar with GIS applications would stand to gain the least from this material. Advanced topics such as cluster analysis, spatial autocorrelation, and contagion are addressed in short, paragraph-length snippets.

This review comes full circle by considering how well Vann and Garson have accomplished their mission, namely convincing readers that GIS applications and the internet together constitute a powerful engine for delivering crime information to policy making elites and the public. I believe that they have succeeded. It seems likely that law enforcement officials will continue to embrace GIS applications and internet based deliveries of crime information. As law enforcement tools continue to evolve, GIS crime mapping will be viewed as the gold standard of geographic analyses, just as DNA analyses have been in forensic studies.

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