Crime mapping refers to law enforcement’s use of maps that track the geographic location of past crimes. The intention of this is claimed to be so police can “predict” where crime may occur next, or where they might station police resources, but first and foremost crime mapping has been used to label certain locations and communities as being more criminal, and thus “requiring” more police to be assigned there.
In the years before computers and modern technology, crime mapping was done on paper maps, with pins and writing materials. In recent decades, police map crime using computer-based technologies including Geographic Information System (GIS), a geographic data-gathering software.
Sgt. Charles Coleman explains the possible sources of crime on a map for patrols using predictive policing zone maps from LAPD. Image Source: Washington Post
Crime mapping has long been a weapon in the criminalization of communities, as it allowed academics and police to assign criminality to communities based on the supposed “evidence” of reports of crime, or the reports of police. Crime mapping is a form of Predictive Policing in itself, and is used as the foundation of predictive policing programs including Operation LASER and Data-Informed Community-Focused Policing (DICFP).
Image description: A digital map is overlaid with blue dots to indicate policing places of note. Image source: Esri for Law Enforcement