Usually, here at The Crime Map, we focus on domestic crime mapping and analysis, but I came across this cool case study that examines population shifts/density, crime mapping, and analysis. For example, although Turkey experienced a 10% overall increase in crime since 2004, a population growth analysis shows that crime per 100,000 citizens actually decreased by 10.7%.
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Stuart Adams, at the SociaLies blog recently published a post titled, “Trick or Tweet? Is Twitter a Viable Emergency Notification System?” In the post, he discusses the recent widespread adoption of Twitter in law enforcement, emergency services, and city governments as an emergency notification tool. He ends the post with a question:
Are we setting ourselves up for the big bang by increasing our reliance upon social media for emergency news, rather than what this media was intended for originally?
My answer: Yes (and no).
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Computer use in law enforcement has made many things possible that were once either impossible or laboriously time consuming. The Internet has exploded these possibilities even further. While there are quite a few software products out there specifically designed for crime analysis, often times these products are expensive and out of the reach for many crime analysts. However, some of my most useful tools are free.
A number of Google’s tools have found there way into my daily work product. One of the neatest in my Google bag of tricks is the use of Google Alerts.
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Too often, approaches to prevent drunk driving focus on “get tough” measures that harshly punish offenders; harsh punishment, after all, will dissuade not only those specific drivers from driving drunk again but also send a message to the community at large that they too should not drive drunk. In theory, this idea seems to make sense.
The problem, however, is that these types of programs deals with drunk driving AFTER the fact, relying on law enforcement to catch people in the act. Given that a first-time drunk driving offender has driven drunk an average of 87 times prior to being arrested, this approach would appear to be a too little too late, and wastes law enforcement resources on catching instead of preventing. A “smart on crime” approach would aim to prevent the crime from occurring in the first place.
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Today, a Superior Court Judge in California struck down Los Angeles’ current ban on new medical marijuana dispensaries, calling the moratorium invalid. The invalidation of LA’s’ attempt to stop new medical marijuana dispensaries from opening, also prevents law enforcement from carrying out the ban. However, the attempt to stop medical marijuana dispensaries from spreading across the city, has created an interesting map.
The LA Times compiled a map of the locations of current marijuana dispensaries, the locations of potential dispensaries that had applied for an exemption from the ban, and those dispensaries whose applications had already been denied or withdrawn.
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