Mapping and Analysis for Public Safety: Funding for Spatial Data Analysis

The proposed project will be an examination of the distance traveled by offenders and victims to their involvement in violent crimes. The travel behavior will be analyzed by type of crime and by the age, race, and sex of both the victim and offender. The applicant will provide examples as to how this knowledge can improve the practice of policing.

The goals of the proposed project are to (1) establish a basis for understanding the travel patterns and spatial interactions of victims and offenders, (2) provide an initial exploration of techniques for visualizing these distributions and relationships, and (3) give concrete examples that show how this knowledge can improve policing practices.

The applicant will conduct a multilevel analysis beginning with a micro-level assessment of distance-to-crime events. The analysis will focus on violent-crime events recorded in the Metropolitan Police of the District of Columbia's spatial data repository. Distance to crime will be calculated for victims and offenders. It will be calculated for each type of crime and then disaggregated to reflect the age, race, and sex of victims and offenders. Each crime address, offender's home address, and victim's home address will be assigned to areal units and analyzed at the neighborhood level using three different mobility triangle classification systems.

Ca/ncf