Crime Mapping and Spatial Analysis

Crime maps are becoming significant tools in crime and justice. Advances in the areas of information technology and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have opened new opportunities for the use of digital mapping in crime control and prevention programs. Crime maps are also valuable for the study of the ecology and the locational aspects of crime. Maps enable areas of unusually high or low concentration of crime to be visually identified. Maps are however only pictorial representations of the results of more or less complex spatial data analyses. A hierarchical model dealing with crime analysis is proposed and applied to the regional analysis of crime in Tehran, the model helps to identify spatial concentration of crimes in specific area (area based method). In area-based methods, crime data are aggregated into geographical areas such as blocks, precincts, and for each area, the analyst computes a measure of crime value. Multicriteria evaluation concept has been used to assess the crime rate in various blocks a discrete (part) of Tehran city. In this part we used two methods for crime density assessment: • Crime assessment based on crime per block, • Crime assessment based on density of crime per population. After determination of hot spots based on two methods mentioned above spatial function is used to find suitable location to establish new police station or direct patrol to the hot spots to reduce of crime.