Development of a GIS Mapping Application for Crime Analysis for Law Enforcement Agencies in Owerri Metropolis (original) (raw)
This work used Geographic Information Systems to create crime maps and analyze crime distribution within the Dansoman Police Subdivision in Accra, Ghana. It was done on a pilot basis and is intended to enable senior officers have a visual framework for prescribing action. Spatial data of 142 crime incidents namely Assault, Causing Damage, Defilement, Fraud, Rape, Robbery, Stealing and Unlawful Entry was analyzed using ArcGis®v10 software. A summary of the attribute table showed that Assault, Causing Damage and Unlawful Entry had the highest counts of 22 each while Rape and Stealing had the least counts of 12 each. Pin maps produced gave a graphical representation of crime locations against a backdrop of roads, existing police stations and district boundaries. Kernel density estimation maps showed the Mamprobi district had a high density of crime even though it was the smallest district. An average nearest neighbor spatial statistics analysis revealed that all incidents exhibited a random nature apart from Rape and Stealing which were statistically dispersed. None of the 8 crime types was found to be statistically clustered. The mean centers of the crimes were plotted and found to be within a 1 km radius.It is recommended that crime spatial data is collected over longer periods instead of a few months and should also include attribute data such as time, date and personal information of the perpetrators. The results of this analysis could be used as a predictive and tactical tool by the Ghana Police Service. 1. Introduction In general a Geographic Information System (GIS) can be described as a system of hardware, software, data and organizational structure for collecting, storing, manipulating and spatially analyzing geo-referenced data and displaying information resulting from these processes. A more detailed definition describes a GIS as any information management system that can: • Collect, store and retrieve information based on spatial location • Identify locations within a targeted environment that meet specific criteria • Explore relationships among data sets within that environment • Analyze the related data spatially as an aid to making decisions about that environment • Facilitate selecting and passing data to application-specific analytical models capable of assessing the impact of alternatives on the chosen environment; and • Display the selected environment both graphically and numerically either before or after analysis. The thread that is common to both definitions is that in a GIS, decisions are made based on spatial analyses performed on data sets that are referenced in a common geographical system. GIS has been applied in virtually every imaginable field of activity from engineering to agriculture and from medical science of epidemiology to wildlife management. (Ghilani and Wolf, 2012) The use of GIS in law enforcement, crime prevention and general policing is therefore not an entirely new phenomenon with much of the innovation in crime mapping being driven in the United States by the National Institute of Justice's Crime Mapping and Research Center (CRMC) later renamed as the Mapping and Analysis for Public Safety (MAPS). This has served as a foundation for the development of crime mapping in many countries worldwide. (Chainey and Ratcliff, 2005) Crime mapping is the direct application that comes from considering the inherent geography in crime. It combines the skills of people, the practical use of data and information, and the application of technology to capture, analyse, identify and respond to crime problems and improve policing performance. Crime mapping techniques can also be applied to other police data such as incidents, offenders, victims, stops and searches. (https://www.ucl.ac.uk/scs/people/academic-research-staff/spencer-chainey/Slides/Home\_Office\_CrimeMapping) Using GIS, crime analysts can overlay other datasets such as census demographics, locations of pawn shops, liquor shops and bars, schools, etc., to better understand the underlying causes of crime and help law enforcement administrators to devise strategies to deal with the problem. GIS is also useful for law enforcement operations, such as allocating police officers and dispatching to emergencies.