NCJ Number
219216
Date Published
January 2002
Length
16 pages
Annotation
This paper describes the issues that police officials need to address in order to create useful Cross Boundary Crime Mapping Systems (CBCMS); the relationship between two or more police agencies that exchange data describing crime in their locations.
Abstract
Over the last decade, crime mapping has emerged as one of the most important and popular innovations in American policing. Computerized crime mapping has become a standard tool in American police agencies. With recent improvements in mapping software, mapping crime across borders and giving police managers the capabilities to see larger crime patterns are becoming more of a reality. However, mapping across jurisdictions has emerged as a major problem in the integration of crime mapping into police problem solving. Crime problems often cross jurisdictional boundaries. But crime analysis is often based within specific jurisdictions, and police agencies have found it difficult to move from the idea of cross-jurisdictional crime mapping to actual implementation of systems for examining crime across jurisdictional boundaries. In this, the police have faced not only technological, but also organizational, political, and social barriers. This paper discusses factors that influence the utility of creating a Cross Boundary Crime Mapping System (CBCMS), including the willingness to act on discovered patterns, the presence of shared crime patterns, data quality, administrative arrangements, and concerns about privacy and data sharing. Although technology has made cross-jurisdictional mapping possible, these issues are the most critical to success. References