Volume 2 Issue 2 | December 2009

Public Safety

Geography

A Quarterly Bulletin of Applied Geography for the Study of Crime & Public Safety

Why Neighborhoods Matter: 

The Importance of Geographic 

Composition

Ronald E. Wilson

Mapping and Analysis for Public Safety Program

National Institute of Justice

Neighborhoods are the places where the everyday practice of life occurs.1

 They are 

geographical units that are essential to people’s lives—people connect these living 

environments to their identity and, thus, neighborhoods become personally meaningful. 

For these reasons, magazines feature neighborhoods based on the activities, restaurants, or 

personalities of the people who live there. The media often set the context of news stories 

in a neighborhood. Travel literature promotes neighborhoods to visit. Real estate marketing 

highlights houses for sale by neighborhood. 

Essentially, neighborhoods create and form communities. Residents share the same 

experiences. They suffer or revel in the availability and quality of local housing, schools, 

jobs, businesses, health care, and human services. They experience the effects of crime that 

occurs within neighborhood boundaries. Neighborhoods create the background for people’s 

life stories. They leave lasting impressions on residents about what life is like and what social 

problems exist in a living community. 

Because neighborhoods play such an integral role in forming community and social 

networks, many studies analyze social problems in relation to the neighborhoods where they 

occur. In particular, crime studies use the concept of a neighborhood to help understand 

why crime occurs in some places but not others. Many of these studies, however, have 

primarily used a sociological perspective of the neighborhood, which does not account for 

geographic aspects of the area. The geography of the neighborhood provides a framework 

within which to observe and analyze the problems that occur. With a geographic 

framework, the neighborhood becomes the focal point for residents, business, visitors, 

and the government to take action and resolve problems using immediate and practical 

solutions. 

Geographic information systems (GIS) have played a major role in identifying that 

framework by delineating the boundaries of neighborhoods and making them practical, 

useful units of geographic space. GIS helps users understand the dynamics of problems 

within, between, and across neighborhoods. It facilitates drawing more accurate, scaleappropriate representations of the designated space. 

With online mapping services, residents of a neighborhood can create a virtual 

representation of the geography that makes up their neighborhood. They can discreetly 

carve out their “territory.” This creates a sense of belonging to an area, which can serve as 

Contents

1 Why Neighborhoods 

Matter: The Importance of 

Geographic Composition

3 Not In My Neighborhood: 

An Essay on Policing Place

6 Policing Neighborhoods in 

Baltimore County

10 Neighborhoods Matter: 

A Situational Policing 

Perspective

12 Applying Community 

Policing Tapestry Data to 

Public Safety

14 Technical Tips

17 The Socioeconomic 

Mapping and Resource 

Topography (SMART) 

System

17 News Briefs

19 Geography and Public 

Safety Events
22

G&PS | December 2009

a mechanism to rally other residents together, 

draw attention to their issues, highlight what 

the neighborhood has to offer, or represent the 

area as a collective in a political arena. 

Even with the advantage of modern GIS 

technologies, neighborhood boundaries are 

difficult to define. Difficulties arise because of 

the scale and complexity of the interactions 

within neighborhoods and the lack of data 

to represent which locations are within 

neighborhood boundaries. Thus, a range of 

boundaries may define the same neighborhood, 

varying because of the factors and data used to 

create each neighborhood map. 

For example, residents of neighborhoods 

define boundaries based on people with 

whom they have regular contact or their 

perceptions of activity that occurs within 

a set of local markers. Resident-defined 

neighborhoods can be too small for sampling. 

Local governments create neighborhood 

boundaries based on streets to facilitate the 

deployment of services and maintenance. 

These boundaries are often much too large 

and incorporate several neighborhoods. Other 

local government services, such as the police, 

create boundaries that represent neighborhoods 

as patrol areas. These boundaries can consist 

of a conglomeration of many neighborhoods 

and can be too large. In many instances, 

these conglomerations often incorporate 

neighborhoods that do not interact with each 

other. When multiple neighborhoods that do 

not interact are conglomerated, conflicts of 

interest can emerge because one neighborhood 

has different needs and problems than the other 

or resources are spread too thin across a large 

area.

Beyond the issue of delineating a neighborhood 

is the use of technology as a mechanism for 

promoting the sense of a neighborhood. Online 

tools and other resources promote the idea of 

the “neighborhood” to connect residents with 

the people, businesses, organizations, and other 

resources around them. The Socioeconomic 

Mapping and Resource Topography (SMART) 

system and the web site EveryBlock are two 

such examples. The SMART system can be 

used to identify resources in a neighborhood 

to combat juvenile problems and EveryBlock 

provides a full scope of the activities and 

resources in a given neighborhood. 

This issue of Geography and Public Safety looks 

at topics, definitions, and technologies that 

demonstrate that neighborhoods matter. It 

shows how to use data about neighborhoods 

to combat crime and other public safety 

problems. Articles bring the abstract idea of 

a neighborhood into a concrete set of ideas 

for practice. The articles by Marc Buslik, 

Phil Canter, and Mark Warren highlight 

how multiple delineations of neighborhood 

boundaries make it more difficult for the 

police to serve the public adequately. John 

Markovic discusses why neighborhoods matter 

when implementing community policing. 

Also, an article by Jim Zepp highlights how 

residents of various neighborhoods participated 

in a government contest to create web sites 

that helped citizens of Washington, D.C., 

better communicate information about their 

neighborhoods to others. 

Defining a neighborhood works to conserve the 

community. Creating that sense of community 

and solving neighborhood problems requires 

initiative by the local residents, community 

organizations, and businesses because they 

are the ones who understand how to craft an 

agenda of real and doable work. Geography, 

as recognized and implemented through 

technology, can serve as a solid framework from 

which that agenda can be appropriately scaled 

and crafted.2 Ultimately, using geographic 

techniques can help maintain and improve 

a community’s quality of life. Increasing 

neighborhoods’ quality of life is vital. If 

neighborhoods flourish, people’s lives will 

likely flourish with them. Conversely, if they 

deteriorate, then lives will also deteriorate.

Notes

1

De Certeau, M. The Everyday Practice of Life. Berkeley 

and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2002.

2

Berry, W. Another Turn of the Crank. Berkeley, 

California: Counterpoint Press, 1995.
3

Place matters. Routine activities theory shows that three factors cooperate 

in a kind of triangle to create a criminal 

event. This crime triangle includes 

vulnerable victims, motivated offenders, 

and insufficient guardians at a particular 

location (or “place”). Many police rely on 

this theoretical foundation to design and 

implement crime-prevention and tactical 

efforts. 

Place also matters to the police. This article 

describes how the police use place (i.e., 

geography) as a concept and as a practical 

component of resource deployment. It 

discusses the somewhat nebulous concept 

of a “neighborhood;” how that term has 

different meanings for criminologists, 

researchers, and the police; and how police 

can incorporate the views of citizens and 

elected officials to deploy resources more 

effectively.

A Police Captain’s Perspective 

As a captain in the Chicago Police 

Department, I appreciate that Chicago has 

an important role in creating the history of 

place as a criminological concept. Although 

Guerry [1833] (2002) and Quetelet [1833] 

(1984) presented the first sociological 

perspective on place, it was the “Chicago 

School” of sociology that provided an 

empirical analysis of how place and crime 

bore a meaningful correlation (Shaw and 

McKay, 1942). Other research also confirms 

Chicago’s role in the study of place and 

crime (Thrasher, 1927; Maltz et al., 1991; 

Maltz, 1995; Sampson, Raudebush, and 

Earls, 1995). Without presuming scholarly 

equivalence to these works, I offer my 

personal perspective as a police officer on 

place and crime.1

This is not a fresh perspective of 

neighborhood effects on crime. My 

experiences and views are not that different 

from what research and policing have given 

us in the last 40 or so years. I recognize 

that poverty, joblessness, racism, gangs 

and drugs, political corruption, police 

misconduct, and societal neglect correlate 

to crime rates. In this article, I want to 

explore how neighborhoods affect crime 

and disorder. This essay is about the term 

“neighborhood.”

What Is a Neighborhood? 

Researchers use the term neighborhood 

based on the needs of their research. 

For researchers, a neighborhood can be 

defined by many variables—for instance, 

a neighborhood can refer to the area 

lying within a census tract, ZIP Code, or 

physical boundary; or the citizens who 

fall into a demographic category (e.g., 

those who have a certain income level or 

socioeconomic status). Although many 

subjectively identified independent variables 

may be associated with a neighborhood, the 

geography of the neighborhood remains 

constant throughout the analysis. These 

criteria help researchers ascribe a dependent 

variable to that piece of the larger 

community and learn about characteristics 

of the people who reside there.2

On the other hand, police must dynamically 

interpret geography and place when 

considering a neighborhood as a level of 

analysis in order to translate the variables 

that define a neighborhood into a physical 

location that needs help with crime 

prevention or requires police resources. 

The police are far less concerned with the 

criteria for defining a neighborhood than 

with the results of those criteria: crime, fear 

of crime, calls for service. These results must 

then translate into practice —for example, 

where to send the troops, how to respond 

to community concerns, or how to answer 

an elected official's requests.3 Essentially, 

while criminologists are interested in the 

factors that create a neighborhood and lead 

to crime, police think about a neighborhood 

as a "place" to deploy resources. For this 

reason, police perspective of “place” is less 

prone to subjective interpretations and 

decisions. 

This does not mean that a sense of “place” 

is not important for police. Criminology 

theory helps to define what police do, how 

we do it, and where we do it. But place now 

has a role in everyday policing, as a unit of 

geographic analysis. David Weisburd (2008) 

discusses how police should interpret the 

concept of place and shows that, for police 

a criminologist’s view of a neighborhood 

is simply not an accurate description of 

geography. A scholarly perspective defines a 

neighborhood as a piece of geography that is 

usually too big, or in some cases too small, 

for police purposes.

To better understand how police view a 

neighborhood, readers should remember the 

elements of routine activity theory’s “crime 

triangle:” the victim, the offender, and the 

place. Whether through problem solving in 

a community policing environment, a more 

direct problem-oriented approach, hot spot 

policing, or intelligence-led policing, law 

enforcement officers use place or geography 

to focus limited resources on what needs 

attention.

A neighborhood for researchers, residents, 

businesses, or visitors, therefore, becomes 

a vague and potentially confusing element 

to police. The police look not at what 

constitutes a neighborhood—those 

previously mentioned independent variables 

of demographics and more—but at the 

output of how those variables interact and 

produce an effect that requires the need for 

police resources. This output—or dependent 

variable—might include the crime rate or 

the community’s sense of well-being (their 

quality of life). 

Not In My Neighborhood: An Essay on Policing Place

Marc S. Buslik

Chicago Police Department

University of Illinois at Chicago

Chicago, Illinois
44

G&PS | December 2009

Understanding a Police 

Perspective of a Neighborhood 

To illustrate the police perspective, one can 

look at maps of the city of Chicago and see how 

various types of boundaries are represented. 

This will help show the difficulty of providing 

a practical definition of a neighborhood in 

policing.4 Neighborhoods as a conceptual entity 

are not monolithic or static. They change over 

time both by boundary and by demographic. 

They are organic—they grow, divide, merge, 

decline, regenerate. These ideas are examined 

in the discussion of four maps (Figures 1, 2, 3, 

and 4):

Figure 1 shows Chicago’s police districts5 and 

officers’ individual beats. With 280 beats, the 

department can, in most cases, respond to local 

community concerns quite well—assuming a 

certain homogeneity across an individual beat. 

This homogeneity, however, is not a given. 

Nor is this concern unique to the Chicago 

police. Beats are designed to help average 

police workloads. They may include pieces of 

multiple census tracts, ethnic groupings, and 

other demographic variations and they can 

encompass large areas.

Chicago is often called a “city of 

neighborhoods.” These neighborhoods have been 

formalized into 77 “community areas” that are 

used to identify local history and characteristics. 

The Portage Park community, for example, 

surrounds a large park of the same name. The 

police department does not formally use these 

“community area” boundaries, nor do these 

boundaries represent political boundaries for 

the purpose of formal city services. Although 

these pieces of geography can be as small as 

informal neighborhoods, they remain too 

broad for police patrol needs. Figure 2 shows 

how little police districts and community areas 

coincide geographically.

As Figure 3 shows, Chicago is additionally 

divided into 50 political subdivisions, called 

wards. Each ward is represented by an elected 

Figure 1. The Chicago Police Department’s districts and police officers’ beats.
5

city council member called an alderman. 

Wards are redrawn based on decennial 

federal census data to provide equitable 

ethnic and racial representation. Police 

districts and wards crisscross over each other 

so that one district commander may work 

with multiple aldermen or an alderman may 

work with multiple district commanders 

to serve the needs of citizens. Even wards 

provide no better sense of serviceable 

neighborhoods. These sorts of boundaries 

are not exclusive to Chicago. Figure 4 

highlights all of these formal boundaries. 

This map shows the difficulty police have 

when defining neighborhoods, applying 

crime-prevention services, and deploying 

resources to an area. 

The purpose of presenting these maps is 

not to suggest that police are not interested 

in other definitions of neighborhood 

boundaries. Understanding these boundaries 

helps police create effective partnerships 

with communities. But police strive to 

deploy resources to resolve the effects of 

crime on neighborhoods, not the effects of 

neighborhoods on crime.

Discussion 

Defining neighborhoods involves working 

with the boundaries provided by police 

administrators, government, and 

communities to create a working model 

for deploying police resources. To achieve 

this goal, the research community should 

continue to help the police understand what 

neighborhood characteristics can be used 

to inform the police planning process. For 

example, they might determine answers to 

questions such as the following:

 How are crime rates affected if a 

community adds video cameras to 

neighborhood streetlight poles rather 

than just posting Neighborhood Watch 

signs? 

 How do foreclosure rates affect crime? 

 Do communities with high gang 

membership rates attract different types 

of crime?

Unfortunately, random patrol equals 

random results. So what to do? Police 

should use geographic information systems 

to determine where to provide focused 

patrol “missions” to the areas that show the 

greatest need. 

Police must examine how geography 

affects policing today. Static geography 

used for responses and reporting can 

now be made more dynamic because of 

near-real-time information about police 

workloads and community needs. Is this 

the only useful form of police deployment 

decision-making? Of course not. But 

incorporating dynamic geography when 

making resource deployment decisions helps 

a department become more responsive to 

each neighborhood’s dependent variables. 

Ratcliffe (2008) informs us that this tactic 

is a useful component of intelligenceled policing, a broad, strategic approach 

to making deployment decisions for the 

provision of public safety.

This answer is simple and almost painfully 

obvious. Still, police struggle with 

decisions of resource deployment based 

on need. I would suggest that the police 

listen to researchers and citizens when 

Figure 2. The Chicago Police Department’s districts and community 

areas correspond little geographically.

Figure 3. Chicago is divided into 

50 political subdivisions called wards.

Figure 4. All formal 

boundaries, combined 

in this figure, show the 

difficulty of defining 

neighborhoods. 
66

G&PS | December 2009

Policing Neighborhoods in Baltimore County

Philip R. Canter and Major Mark Warren

Baltimore County Police Department

Towson, Maryland

trying to understand what elements define a 

neighborhood. The differences in definitions 

of neighborhood are not a conflict, but a 

complement to each perspective.

Notes

1

This article is an opinion editorial and does not 

represent the viewpoints of the Chicago Police 

Department. Additionally, the circumstances described 

using the Chicago Police Department as an example 

are far from unique. Rather, Chicago is used here as a 

generalized example of the difficulties police across the 

country face and work to resolve.

2

For example, researchers might look at the variable of 

Neighborhood Watch signs and how these signs affect 

the behavior of residents and visitors (Wilson and 

Brown, 2009).

3

In particular, a police department operating under 

a community policing philosophy will account for 

a wider range of inputs to the deployment process. 

Decision-making will incorporate feedback from the 

community rather than being based solely on a police 

perspective. 

4

It will also highlight the confusion that demographers, 

policymakers, criminologists, and even citizens may 

have when attempting to define a neighborhood.

5

The Chicago Police Department divides the city into 

25 patrol districts for deployment and administrative 

purposes. Detective and specialized units operate 

citywide or by grouped (i.e., multiple-district) 

geographical distributions. Within each district are 

from 9 to 15 beats. Each beat is staffed by one or two 

police officers 24 hours a day. The beat is both a unit 

of analysis and a response unit. Workload variations 

based on the time of day require additional patrol units 

within a district. Chicago’s district is equivalent to the 

New York Police Department’s precinct and the Los 

Angeles Police Department’s division.

References 

Guerry, A.M. Essay on the Moral Statistics of France: 

A Sociological Report to the French Academy of Science.

Paris: Crochard, 1833. Translated by H.P. Whitt and 

V.W. Reinking. Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen 

Press, 2002.

Maltz, M. D. “Criminology in Space and Time: Life 

Course Analysis and the Micro-Ecology of Crime,” 

in Crime and Place, ed. J. E. Eck and D. Weisburd. 

Monsey, New York: Criminal Justice Press/Willow Tree 

Press, 1995:315–348.

Maltz, M. D., A.C. Gordon, and W. Friedman, with M. 

Buslik, R.K. LeBailley, P. Schnoor, D. Thomson, and J.P. 

Walsh. Mapping Crime in its Community Setting: Event 

Geography Analysis. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1991.

Quetelet, A. J. Research on the Propensity for Crime at 

Different Ages. Brussels: Hayez, 1831. Translated by S.F. 

Sylvester. Cincinnati: Anderson Publishing Company, 

1984.

Ratcliffe, J. Intelligence-Led Policing. Cullompton, 

Devon, UK: Willan Publishing, 2008.

Sampson, R.J., S.W. Raudenbush, and F. Earls. 

“Neighborhoods and Violent Crime: A Multilevel Study 

of Collective Efficacy.” Science 277(5328)(1995):918–

924.

Shaw, C.R., and H.D. McKay. Juvenile Delinquency and 

Urban Areas: A Study Of Rates Of Delinquents In Relation 

To Differential Characteristics Of Local Communities In 

American Cities. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 

1942.

Thrasher, F. The Gang. Chicago: University of Chicago 

Press, 1927.

Weisburd, D. Place-Based Policing, Ideas in American 

Policing, No. 9. Washington, D.C.: Police Foundation, 

2008.

Wilson, R., and T. Brown, with B. Schuster. “Preventing 

Neighborhood Crime: Geography Matters.” NIJ Journal

263(June 2009):30–35.

Introduction

Police protect and preserve the quality of 

life of neighborhoods. These neighborhoods 

are building blocks for communities.1

Because neighborhoods are such an integral 

part of communities, problem-solving and 

community policing efforts must focus on the 

neighborhood and the people who interact 

with it. Similarly, police must work with the 

community to jointly improve the quality of 

life in local neighborhoods. 

However, the physical area of a “neighborhood” 

remains relatively undefined. Neighborhoods 

are not clearly demarcated by a boundary, and 

residents may have differing opinions about 

what streets and local landmarks are a part of 

their neighborhood.

This article will discuss the sources that 

the Baltimore County Police Department 

uses to define polygons that approximate 

neighborhood areas in a suburban jurisdiction. 

Most of these sources of information are in the 

form of digital maps that include attributes 

on neighborhood characteristics (names, 

contact people, addresses, etc.). In addition, 

this article will examine several operational 
7

and tactical applications used by Baltimore 

County police to provide services at 

the neighborhood level. Although 

“neighborhood” and “community” are 

frequently used in the same context, 

“neighborhood” describes a relatively small 

geographic entity that contains a group of 

people who have common lifestyles and 

share common values.

Baltimore County’s 

Neighborhood Master Plans 

Plans for community improvement and 

safety often focus on neighborhoods. 

Master or comprehensive plans developed 

by urban planners usually have a strong 

emphasis on neighborhood planning and 

preservation. For example, the Master 

Plans for Baltimore County2 emphasize the 

importance of community conservation 

and public safety, using the neighborhood 

as a foundation for future growth. Goals 

include protecting citizens from crime 

in their homes and communities. To 

accomplish these goals, police need to have 

close interaction with key community 

leaders to control crime and reduce fear. 

The Baltimore County police use 

community policing strategies to 

accomplish such goals. In community 

policing, line officers consistently serve the 

same geographic areas and populations. 

The officers gain a measure of familiarity 

with local citizens that promotes trust 

and mutual respect. Consequently, the 

neighborhood as an area unit becomes an 

important geosocial entity to police. 

Defining “Neighborhood” 

Boundaries 

The “neighborhood,” although conceptually 

difficult to define, is recognized as a 

functional unit by social scientists. 

Models such as concentric zone, sector, 

and multiple nuclei theories help explain 

city structures and seem to confirm 

the importance of neighborhoods. 

These models found that cities have 

neighborhoods that tend to group together 

according to socioeconomic status.

Residential neighborhoods can have welldefined boundaries set by artificial or 

natural features or by planning elements 

such as recreational facilities, open space, 

or parks. McKeever (1968) provides 

a definition of a neighborhood as a 

“geographic area within which residents 

may all conveniently share common 

services and facilities required in the 

vicinity of their dwellings.” So, although 

neighborhoods can be somewhat defined 

by sociological models, they have a spatial 

dimension as well. What follows are some 

examples of how Baltimore County has 

geographically defined neighborhoods.

Elementary school model. Urban 

planners sometimes define the extent of 

a neighborhood by a population served 

by an elementary school. Baltimore 

County’s development model suggested 

using elementary schools to define the 

boundaries of a neighborhood. The area of 

a neighborhood is defined by the walking 

distance to an elementary school.3 Although 

this criterion seems overly simplistic 

in its definition and delimitation of 

neighborhood, it attempts to demonstrate 

how a group of homes within a social, 

economical, and political construct 

identifies with a local institution. 

Name model. Some areas in Baltimore 

County associate certain names 

with a neighborhood. The names of 

neighborhoods are often referenced by 

the media or may appear in the real estate 

section. One real estate source in Maryland, 

MD HomeTownLocator, lists populated 

areas by name for Baltimore County. 

The web map associated with this source 

uses points rather than polygons to show 

the approximate locations of these areas 

(maryland.hometownlocator.com/md/

baltimore/).4 These sorts of neighborhood 

boundaries are transitional and fluid, 

merging or overlapping into neighboring 

areas. 

Census geography model. Census 

geography can also be used to define 

neighborhoods. Baltimore City Planning 

used national census data from 2000 to 

identify more than 225 neighborhoods 

(www.livebaltimore.com/neighborhoods/

list/). The Baltimore County Police 

Department then provides selected crime 

statistics for each of these neighborhoods. 

Many of Baltimore’s neighborhoods have 

neighborhood associations that may have 

assisted planning officials in defining 

neighborhood boundaries using census 

blocks. 

Baltimore County 

“Neighborhoods”

Although tangible boundaries that 

define a neighborhood can be elusive, 

the advantages for police in delimiting 

geographic features corresponding to 

neighborhood entities can be significant. 

Once neighborhoods have been identified, 

they can direct tactical and operational 

responses to neighborhood crime and 

public safety problems. 

The Baltimore County government does 

not maintain information on neighborhood 

boundaries, but instead provides a 

digital map corresponding to boundaries 

identified as community associations. 

The government uses this map for direct 

mailing, particularly in regards to zoning 

or environmental issues. In turn, police 

analysts have used this map to help develop 

beat boundaries. 

On a larger geographic scale, Baltimore 

County police analysts use a variety of 

sources, such as:

 Maryland state tax assessment data

 Aerial photography 

 Federal census blocks and census block 

groups 

 Patrol and community outreach 

officers5

 Preliminary and recorded subdivision 

plats6

 An atlas, showing maps of the area 

 Windshield surveys.7 

Much of the data used by police analysts to 

approximate neighborhood boundaries is in 

the form of digital maps or attribute tables 

that can be overlaid on a digital map using 

a Geographic Information System (GIS). 

Analysts overlay map layers from different 

sources to create polygons called “reporting 

areas” (Figure 1). These reporting areas 

are statistical units that correspond to 

neighborhoods or contain areas of similar 

land use such as a high school or shopping 
88

G&PS | December 2009

center. These reporting areas are the smallest 

polygons that Baltimore County police use to 

report statistics on crime, arrests, and calls for 

service. Police posts (i.e., beats) in Baltimore 

County comprise one or more reporting areas. 

This reduces the possibility of police posts being 

split between neighborhoods and communities. 

Neighborhood Policing in 

Baltimore County 

Police analysts in Baltimore County can provide 

law enforcement data for a single housing unit 

or address. To understand what types of crime 

occur where, police find it useful to know the 

number and types of calls by address. But this 

address-specific information does not always 

provide the best view of crime in a community 

or neighborhood. Statistics aggregated to 

reporting areas that approximate neighborhood 

areas can provide a different perspective and 

perhaps a better understanding of problems 

in and around a neighborhood. This section 

describes a number of systems Baltimore 

County police have employed to better police 

neighborhoods.

Census data. When citizens request crime 

and call information, police analysts provide 

that information by reporting area. Because 

census geography is used as a guide in 

creating reporting area boundaries, precinct 

commanders have detailed statistical summaries 

of neighborhood-level demographic, housing, 

and socioeconomic information for their 

command areas. Census, crime, and arrest 

data have been used to develop a multivariate 

“juvenile risk indicator” to determine whether 

Police Athletic League (PAL) centers were 

located in the appropriate neighborhoods. PAL 

Figure 1 Analysts overlay map layers from different sources to help identify 

neighborhoods. A: Shows property tax parcels and streets. B: Shows census 

2000 blocks overlaid onto parcels and streets. C: Introduces aerial photography 

to the layer. D: Shows reporting areas corresponding to neighborhood 

“boundaries.”
9

centers are staffed by Baltimore County 

police officers and recreation coordinators 

who work with neighborhood volunteers to 

enhance youth’s moral development through 

enjoyable activities. Police management 

have used the “juvenile risk indicator” to 

help determine which communities had 

the highest risk of juvenile crime. As a 

result, one PAL center was relocated to 

a community that had a greater need as 

indicated by the index.

Public safety indicators. Police analysts 

have also developed indicators to assess the 

health and viability of neighborhoods. These 

indicators consist of four measures that 

are based largely on social disorganization, 

anomie, and strain theories. Since studies 

have shown that crime and delinquency 

tend to increase in socially disorganized 

neighborhoods, analysts reason that the 

presence of crime and delinquency may 

be indicators of distressed neighborhoods 

having inadequate social controls. Every 

3 months, police analysts rank reporting 

areas by the number of violent crimes, 

selected calls for service,8 drug arrests, and 

the resident location of juvenile offenders. 

Reporting areas in the top 5 percent for 

each of the four measures are mapped and 

distributed to commanders for attention. 

Neighborhoods that are in the top 5 percent 

for two or three of the four measures are 

identified as “transition” areas. Transition 

areas are usually targeted by police 

commanders for problem-solving programs. 

Neighborhoods that are consistently in 

the top 5 percent for all four indicators 

are sometimes targeted for more aggressive 

programs, such as use of eminent domain 

and demolition.

Crime reports and maps. Police 

commanders often need crime statistics 

summarized for each neighborhood for 

community outreach or neighborhood 

association meetings. The Baltimore 

County Police Department created a 

web-based application called Street Level 

Access Program (SLAP) that enables any 

officer to produce summary statistics by 

neighborhood from the department’s 

regional tactical crime analysis database. 

Crime statistics are summarized in tabular 

form and can be easily copied into a 

spreadsheet for graphing. 

In addition, police departments in the 

Baltimore region worked with the U.S. 

Department of Justice to create a public 

domain crime mapping application called 

the Regional Crime Analysis Geographic 

Information System (RCAGIS). The 

RCAGIS program uses an Environmental 

Systems Research Institute9 mapping 

platform to create tactical crime maps by 

neighborhood based on simple queries. 

Crime information produced by SLAP 

and RCAGIS helps commanders view the 

geographic distribution of crime and the 

details associated with thematic points.

Early warning programs. Tactical 

crime analysts in Baltimore County have 

developed “early warning” programs 

to alert them to unusually high counts 

of burglaries, motor vehicle thefts, or 

street robberies reported in high-crime 

neighborhoods. The early warning system 

identifies neighborhoods with crimes that 

exceed a threshold value over a given crime 

cycle (expressed as y number of crimes over 

x number of days). Thresholds and cycles 

are computed individually for high-crime 

neighborhoods. These calculations help 

determine whether a post car alert needs 

to be issued. Post car alerts are sent by 

e-mail to officers patrolling neighborhoods 

affected by crime. A post car alert includes 

detailed information about crimes 

occurring in neighborhoods. They contain 

neighborhood contact information, so 

police can disseminate information about 

a crime problem to appropriate parties. 

Neighborhood contacts are also used for 

the department’s autodialing system, an 

automated dial-out system that alerts 

households about a crime problem in their 

neighborhood. Precinct commanders also 

use e-mail trees to send information about 

a crime problem in a neighborhood. In 

addition, the department is using web 

technology to make it easier for the public 

to find out about crime problems in their 

neighborhoods.

Concluding Remarks 

The Baltimore County Police Department’s 

emphasis on neighborhood public safety has 

reinforced the public trust, contributing to 

lower crime rates and improving citizens’ 

quality of life. Police commanders across the 

country should understand the importance 

of maintaining good communication with 

neighborhood residents. They must ensure 

that community leaders and neighborhood 

associations know that the department is 

accessible. Police should also understand 

that good community outreach helps to 

disseminate information that can reinforce 

crime prevention, lead to arrests, and reduce 

crime. 

Ultimately, as law enforcement strives to 

strengthen community policing strategies, 

they should focus on seeing neighborhoods 

as important geosocial entities. Police can 

successfully address problems by focusing 

limited resources at the neighborhood level. 

Notes 

1

Urban planners refer to neighborhoods as “local 

communities” because neighborhood interactions 

encourage community growth. See McKeever, 

J. Ross, ed., The Community Builders’ Handbook, 

Washington, D.C.: Urban Land Institute, 1968.

2

Baltimore County, Maryland 1989–2000 Master Plan 

and Baltimore County, Maryland 1999–2010 Master 

Plan, Office of Planning and Zoning, Towson, 

Maryland.

3

See A Comprehensive Plan for Baltimore County, 

1975.

4

The best way to approximate these sorts of 

neighborhood boundaries is to survey residents, but 

this method can be time consuming and expensive. 

Survey results may produce a general consensus 

regarding the central area of a neighborhood but 

the boundaries of a neighborhood may become 

less-defined the further one moves from the 

neighborhood “center.” 

5

Police officers can help identify areas designated for 

Citizen on Patrol (COP), Neighborhood Watch 

programs, and community and neighborhood 

associations.

6

Recorded subdivision plats identify a parcel’s land 

use, roads, and metes and bounds; the latter usually 

used to delimit a neighborhood boundary.

7

Police analysts use windshield surveys to confirm 

street addresses, neighborhood boundaries, and 

neighborhood names.

8

These incident types include calls for service/

situation-found codes relating to gang activity, code 

enforcement complaints, parking complaints, etc.

9

See www.esri.com.
1010

G&PS | December 2009

Effective community policing must respond to the needs of distinct neighborhoods and 

communities. In Defining the “Community” 

in Community Policing,

1

 Daniel W. Flynn 

comments on the challenges of community 

policing that larger police departments serving 

diverse populations face. 

[A typical jurisdiction] is composed of a 

collage of various areas or neighborhoods 

comprising assorted socio-economic groups, 

ethnic groups and groups of particular types 

of businesses or industries. Thus, for the 

purposes of community policing, it becomes 

necessary to subdivide the jurisdiction 

into several smaller communities to tailor 

problem-solving efforts to the communities’ 

unique problems. Ideally, successes in each 

of the smaller communities will combine 

to create a synergistic effect resulting in 

jurisdiction-wide crime reductions, enhanced 

public safety and improved public satisfaction 

with the police.2

Flynn’s perspective suggests that collaborations 

between police and residents should be tailored 

to specific neighborhood needs and attentive to 

the dynamics of neighborhoods as they change 

over time. Police must consider both geographic 

and cultural aspects of neighborhoods, and 

respond to specific contextual and situational 

factors in a community that may inhibit or 

induce crime. These include protective factors, 

such as community organizations that promote 

prosocial values, and risk factors, such as 

tensions between different socioeconomic or 

ethnic groups within the neighborhood. 

This article examines situational policing, a 

recent extension of the community policing 

concept that identifies individual types of 

neighborhoods, and considers how police 

can work across these differences to both 

strengthen neighborhoods and reduce crime. 

It also discusses the policy implications 

associated with identifying and policing 

distinct neighborhood types.

Situational Policing and 

Neighborhood Focus 

The concept of situational policing was 

introduced by James Nolan, Norman Conti, 

and Jack McDevitt in 2004.3 Building off an 

underlying conceptual model and with financial 

support from the Office of Community 

Oriented Policing Services, Nolan and 

colleagues’ current work uses a comprehensive 

assessment, or process model, designed to help 

reduce crime and make neighborhoods safer. 

The process model does this by first identifying 

and understanding neighborhood types and 

then taking appropriate and necessary steps to 

develop strong neighborhoods. 

Situational policing recognizes that 

communities are dynamic and developing 

entities. It supports the idea that police can 

help move communities through developmental 

stages, eventually leading to interdependent 

partnerships among residents, community and 

civic organizations, and the police. In some 

neighborhoods, police must stabilize the area 

before the residents can begin to organize. In 

other neighborhoods, police can rely on existing 

social capital and collective efficacy.4 

Beyond assessing a neighborhood’s crime and 

disorder problems, situational policing calls 

for an assessment of underlying factors that 

contribute to a particular neighborhood’s 

cohesiveness (or lack thereof). Thus, situational 

policing requires sophisticated analysis that 

extends beyond traditional crime analysis. To 

support a situational policing approach, police 

must be prepared to assess a neighborhood’s 

capacity to organize itself and work with 

the police. In particular, this includes law 

enforcement’s ability to assess a neighborhood’s 

unique culture, key community stakeholders 

(e.g., clergy, local politicians, and business 

owners), demographics, and capacity for 

collective efficacy. 

Neighborhoods Matter: 

A Situational Policing Perspective

John Markovic

Office of Community Oriented Policing Services

Washington, D.C.
11

Neighborhood Types 

Nolan and colleagues are developing 

analytic tools that police can use to tailor 

community policing strategies to each 

neighborhood type. To date, the researchers 

have developed a community questionnaire 

that they are administering to residents in 

Cleveland; Morgantown, West Virginia; 

Pittsburgh; and Wilmington, Delaware. 

The project plans to create a comprehensive 

guidebook that will introduce the concept 

of situational policing to law enforcement 

practitioners, document the skills needed 

to assess and respond to the needs of 

individual neighborhoods, and provide 

specific tools and strategies that will help 

agencies implement situational policing 

approaches.

Situational policing stresses that individual 

neighborhoods vary in their degree of 

readiness to engage in collective action 

and in their ability to work effectively with 

police. Nolan and colleagues posit four 

neighborhood types, which vary along two 

dimensions: (1) the level of crime/disorder 

in the neighborhood, and (2) the degree 

to which a neighborhood depends on the 

police or has established interdependence 

(i.e., is capable of collaborating with the 

police). Each neighborhood type requires a 

different police response. The dimensions, 

the resulting neighborhood types, and 

the corresponding policing style types are 

depicted in Figure 1. 

Strong neighborhoods. Strong 

neighborhoods have a high degree of 

interdependence and low levels of crime. 

Residents in strong neighborhoods show 

a willingness to partner with each other 

and readily engage with community and 

civic organizations, including the police, 

in achieving shared goals. Police provide 

support while recognizing the strengths 

and social capacities that exist within the 

neighborhood.

Vulnerable neighborhoods. Vulnerable 

neighborhoods experience low levels 

of crime and disorder and low levels of 

interdependence and collective efficacy. 

Without a clear sense of neighborhood or 

the capacity to act collectively, residents of 

these areas tend to rely on police to provide 

formal social control. Because residents 

do not have a shared sense of belonging, 

incivility or disorder (e.g., congregating 

youth or illegal parking) can escalate 

into more serious disturbances and crime 

problems if left unchecked. Policing in 

these neighborhoods involves focusing on 

disorder issues as a means of sustaining a 

neighborhood’s status as a low-crime area. 

Anomic neighborhoods. Anomic 

neighborhoods are characterized by 

high rates of crime and disorder and low 

levels of collective efficacy. Residents of 

anomic neighborhoods depend on police 

for formal social control. Yet, because of 

high crime rates and historically tense 

relations with police, many residents 

of anomic neighborhoods consider the 

police ineffective. These residents are not 

sufficiently organized to help police fight 

neighborhood crime and disorder problems. 

Police responses in anomic neighborhoods 

may involve traditional reactive responses 

to crime. But officers should also support 

community organizing efforts and outreach 

as mechanisms to build trust and restore 

confidence in the police.

Responsive neighborhoods. Responsive 

neighborhoods have high levels of crime 

and disorder and high levels of collective 

efficacy. These neighborhoods tend to have 

high rates of poverty and other risk factors 

(such as single-parent households and 

underperforming schools). However, they 

have the advantage of strong “social capital” 

in the form of established churches, block 

clubs, and civic associations with high levels 

of community participation. Community 

stakeholders in these areas provide support 

for the neighborhood and effectively 

partner with the police. Police in responsive 

neighborhoods can capitalize on the social 

capital already in place and lend their 

expertise and resources to support public 

safety and crime reduction.

Neighborhood Stages 

Nolan and colleagues suggest that 

neighborhoods can transition through 

or be trapped in various states of police 

dependency. A neighborhood may 

exhibit the characteristics of one of three 

development stages:

Dependence. Dependent neighborhoods 

need direction and leadership. Residents 

generally share the belief that police are 

competent, efficient, and able to provide the 

necessary services to promote public safety. 

Figure 1. This figure represents the four neighborhood types defined by situational policing and 

the police response most appropriate for each neighborhood type.

Policing Styles

Style 1: Supporting & 

Recognizing

Style 3: Securing 

then Organizing

Style 4: Systems, 

Planning, & Response

Style 2: Substituting 

& Selling

Strong Neighborhood Responsive

Neighborhood

Anomic

Neighborhood Vulnerable

Neighborhood

Crime & Disorder 

Low Conflict

Dependence

Interdependence

High

PN & SN

Psychoemotional State of the Neighborhood
1212

G&PS | December 2009

However, these neighborhoods lack strong 

community leaders, so the police may need to 

actively work to establish leaders and strengthen 

community organizations to begin promoting 

higher levels of collective efficacy.

Conflict. Residents of conflicted neighborhoods 

have different expectations and assumptions 

about their roles in the neighborhood and 

the competency and effectiveness of local 

government entities, including the police. 

Neighborhoods in conflict include “up-andcoming neighborhoods” characterized by 

gentrification and displacement and declining 

neighborhoods with high rates of mortgage 

foreclosures and property abandonment. 

Interdependence. Interdependence is the 

optimal state in which conflicts among 

members of a neighborhood are resolved. In 

interdependent neighborhoods, community 

members stand ready to work together with 

each other, the police, and other government 

entities toward common goals.

Policy and Practical Implications

Situational policing is grounded firmly on 

existing theories and has practical appeal. 

However, the situational community policing 

perspective is relatively new and untested. The 

perspective raises questions about whether 

situational policing can be generalized across 

and beyond urban neighborhoods. As this 

perspective emerges, a number of key policy 

and practical questions may arise, including:

 What level of collective identity needs to 

exist before a geographic area can develop a 

shared sense of neighborhood?

 Do certain geographic areas or 

neighborhoods have residents who prefer 

to remain independent? 

 Do most residents in certain areas actually 

prefer dependent and reactive police 

services over active partnership? 

 Are residents in neighborhoods that lack 

collective efficacy capable of or willing to 

change? 

Conclusion

The situational policing perspective provides 

a theoretical framework for understanding 

neighborhood dynamics and their effect on 

crime. Rather than looking at crime patterns 

in isolation, it encourages analysts to assess the 

characteristics of a neighborhood that promote 

or inhibit collaboration with the police. Rather 

than imploring police to attack the “root 

causes” of crime, this perspective encourages 

a practical problem-solving approach that 

focuses on the unique characteristics of 

neighborhoods and how police can help make 

them stronger. As such, it provides a common 

frame of reference to help crime analysts, urban 

planners, government officials, and community 

groups to work more collaboratively. This 

promising theoretical perspective should be 

tested further by academics and analysts in 

applied settings. 

Notes

1

Flynn, Daniel W., Defining the “Community” in 

Community Policing. Washington, D.C.: Police 

Foundation, 1998.

2

Ibid.

3

Nolan, James J., Norman Conti, and Jack McDevitt, 

“Situational Policing: Neighbourhood Development and 

Crime Control,” Policing and Society 14(2)(2004):99–

117. www.informaworld.com/10.1080/1043946041000

1674965.

4

High collective efficacy describes a situation where 

effective informal social control stems from a strong sense 

of belonging, shared expectations, and a willingness to get 

involved for the sake of the neighborhood.

Applying Community Tapestry Data 

to Public Safety 

By Phil Mielke

Redlands Police Department

Redlands, California

When fire chiefs in central Virginia wanted to design a hurricane evacuation plan, they 

needed a data collection system to help them 

understand the characteristics of neighborhoods 

in their community. To collect and organize this 

information, they used Environmental Systems 

Research Institute’s Tapestry Segmentation 

system.1 This system contains Community 

Tapestry data, a complex statistical digest that 

breaks the U.S. population into 65 discrete 
13

segments based on socioeconomic and 

demographic composition. 

Community Tapestry data were crucial 

in creating a central Virginia hurricane 

evacuation plan because they identified 

the needs of specific demographic groups. 

But these data can also work to help 

police create crime prevention strategies 

or enhance public safety. This article 

illustrates how Community Tapestry data 

provide precise, critical information about 

neighborhoods and how that information 

can meet the needs of crime analysts, fire 

squadrons, and law enforcement. 

Making a Plan 

When fire departments plan evacuations or 

police departments plan outreach for crime 

prevention strategies, department decisionmakers need the following information:

 What is the makeup of the community?

 Where do certain groups live?

 What is the most effective way to get a 

message to these community groups?

The Tapestry Segmentation system 

examines similarities in community groups 

by statistically compiling decennial U.S. 

Census data. It then matches these data 

with statistics on consumer spending 

on insurance, food, media, vehicles, and 

other lifestyle categories. The U.S. Census 

assesses many variables that analysts 

can compile and then use to determine 

accurately whether the population groups 

they represent are growing. These variables 

include the following: 

 Population by age and sex

 Population by race and ethnic origin(s)

 Household composition, marital status, 

and living arrangements

 Patterns of migration, mobility, and 

transportation

 General characteristics of housing

 Economic characteristics of housing

 School enrollment and graduation rates

 Employment status, occupation, and 

industry

 Household, family, and personal 

income(s).

Analyzing Community Data 

When mapping demographic data for 

observation, analysts may concentrate 

on one specific variable in attempting to 

understand the makeup of the community. 

Many demographic variables are difficult 

to communicate simultaneously. At these 

times, the Tapestry Segmentation system 

can help. Community Tapestry data give 

a common language to neighborhood 

characteristics and help analysts understand 

these geographic groups better.

Community Tapestry segmentation 

methodology takes two approaches 

to grouping and understanding the 

demographics and the geography under 

consideration. It uses LifeMode grouping, 

which is based on lifestyle and life-stage 

comparisons, and Urbanization grouping, 

which examines a group’s proximity to 

urban centers and metropolitan areas. 

LifeMode groups have similar characteristics 

related to income, age, or education level. 

Urbanization groups have similar geographic 

characteristics like population density and 

closeness to economic centers of commerce. 

The Tapestry Segmentation system separates 

census data into 11 LifeMode groups and 12 

Urbanization groups. These groups are then 

compiled into 65 distinct market segments.2 

Some segments are defined more by their 

level of Urbanization; other segments are 

defined more by their LifeMode. 

Using Community Tapestry 

Data to Develop an 

Evacuation Plan in Central 

Virginia 

Community Tapestry’s segments came into 

play when the fire chiefs in central Virginia 

wanted to identify neighborhoods that had a 

potentially high risk for special needs during 

an evacuation. For instance, older couples 

or older persons living alone may have low 

mobility and health concerns that could 

prevent or delay evacuation, such as the 

need for special equipment or prescription 

medicines. Similarly, large families with 

many children may have a different set of 

needs, such as a need for childcare assistance 

and car seats.

Many variables are relevant to planning an 

evacuation. These can include automobiles, 

health behaviors, pets, and leisure activities. 

Urban groups, for example, are less likely 

to have cars to use in an evacuation, 

and pet care will be necessary when 

relocating a population with a higher than 

average potential to have pets. Also, fire 

departments must plan for the possibility 

that some groups might have difficulty 

receiving the message that an evacuation is 

necessary because some families may not 

speak English at home, and elderly persons 

may be less likely to answer the door when 

responders come.

These sorts of variables are easily identified 

using the Community Tapestry data. 

Indexes might tell decision-makers that 

the ”silver and gold” tapestry segment 

is significantly more likely to require 

prescription filling for blood pressure 

medication or insulin, or that they are far 

more likely to have a dog than a cat (based 

on food purchases).

Not only did the central Virginia fire 

departments need to develop a plan for 

evacuating the community, they needed to 

know how to spread the word. Reaching 

out to individual groups for evacuation and 

relocation requires understanding the media 

that each group consumes. The “young 

and restless” population segment does not 

read newspapers as often as the “cozy and 

comfortable” segment. The “urban fringe” 

segment listens to a different set of radio 

stations than the “silver and gold” segment. 

These differences mean that announcements 

must be planned accordingly. Tapestry 

Segmentation’s market potential index 

can help responders determine which 

communication media various populations 

are more likely to use, including Internet 

service, mobile phones, personal digital 

assistants, radio, cable or broadcast TV, and 

newspapers. 

Conclusion 

Although working with Community 

Tapestry data can be helpful, officers 

and decision-makers should be careful to 

understand the role that demographics 

should not play in public safety. Methods 

that enable analysts and chiefs to broadly 
1414

G&PS | December 2009

understand lifestyle and consumer choices for 

the purposes of outreach and disaster planning 

help give context to strategic decision-making 

efforts, as in the case of central Virginia’s 

hurricane evacuation plan. However, these 

data should not be used to imply that certain 

tapestry segments are more likely to produce 

criminals. 

Having a common language to describe tapestry 

segments is integral to understanding issues 

that communities face, but these are broad 

methods for describing neighborhoods and 

their spending trends. Where tapestry segments 

can help law enforcement better understand 

the communities they police and create plans 

to meet those communities’ needs, they should 

not be overemphasized in identifying areas for 

deploying resources for crime prevention. 

Notes

1

For more information about Tapestry Segmentation, 

visit www.esri.com/tapestry or call 1.800.447.9778.

2

ESRI’s Community Tapestry system was originally 

created to help businesses determine the best areas in 

which to market their products—to find their customer 

base and decide how to market to various groups of 

consumers. Because of this, groups in Community 

Tapestry are referred to as market segments.

TECHINCAL TIPS

Improving Responses to Citizens’ 

Questions about Community Safety 

Jim Zepp

Training and Technical Assistance Director

Justice Research and Statistics Association

When citizens hear that a nearby home has been burglarized or that a neighbor 

was mugged, they want information about the 

individual incidents and to find out whether 

these crimes are part of a larger trend in their 

community. Frequently, new residents may 

want to know how safe their neighborhood is 

for their family and possessions. Many people 

turn to the Internet to obtain this information. 

In recognition of these needs, most law 

enforcement agencies have put some form of 

public crime data on their web sites; however, 

publishing crime information with the same 

formats and area boundaries used for internal 

staff reports may not be an effective way to 

communicate with the public and may hinder 

citizens’ understanding of their communities’ 

relative safety. Most citizens are not familiar 

with crime statistics terminology (e.g., the 

difference between calls-for-service and reported 

crimes) and the geographic areas (i.e., precincts, 

districts, beats) that police use to identify 

neighborhoods. Furthermore, community 

members searching for crime data often need 

comparison reference points so they have some 

context for understanding the significance of 

this information. This article discusses how 

police can better communicate with citizens and 

presents some online sources that help public 

users find crime information fast.

Community Oriented Policing 

Information

What citizens generally want to know is 

whether their neighborhood has a high crime 

rate or a low crime rate relative to the rest of 

the city (or town) and whether crime is going 

down or increasing. Simply reporting that 

“there were 40 burglaries last year, which was 

a 6-percent increase over the previous year” 

provides only some of the information needed 

to fully answer citizens’ questions about crime 

in their area. Specifically, it does not tell them 

how their neighborhood compares to other 

communities or to the city or metropolitan 

area as a whole. Since most individuals believe 

that any crime is unacceptable, without further 

context, citizens can be dissatisfied with the 

police, regardless of law enforcement efforts. 

Additionally, short-term crime statistics can 

be misleading because minor fluctuations can 

occur in the numbers of annual crimes in a 

community. Showing trends of at least 5 years 

gives a more complete picture of how public 

safety conditions are changing. Furthermore, 

when the actual numbers of incidents are 

low (less than 100), yearly percentage-change 

statistics can give an inflated sense of what is 

happening. 
15

These public communications problems 

are largely avoidable if a department’s 

staff members think carefully about what 

a citizen may want to know and how 

police agencies can facilitate access to this 

information. Today, computerized databases 

and mapping software available to most law 

enforcement agencies can make publishing 

crime data in multiple formats much less 

labor intensive. For example, organizing 

crime data by the days of the week and daily 

periods (e.g., daytime, evening, and night) 

can give citizens a clearer sense of when 

threats to safety are more likely to occur. 

Also, interactive web technologies allow 

police to integrate crime data with safety 

and quality-of-life information from other 

public or private agencies, including the 

locations of schools, parks, senior centers, 

bus stops, transit stations, businesses, and 

other facilities. 

In the approach to making crime data 

accessible to the general public, police 

should follow the principles that are the 

basis of community oriented policing—

when officers establish positive relationships 

with community members, it improves 

residents’ cooperation and understanding 

of the local crime conditions. This strategy 

has been almost universally adopted by law 

enforcement. Dissemination of police data 

to the public should be equally community 

oriented. 

The benefits of adopting a communityfriendly approach can include better 

relations with residents and community 

organizations. If citizens have ready access 

to community oriented crime data, they 

will make fewer information requests that 

consume valuable police staff time. Also, 

if residents have a clearer understanding of 

crime issues, this can facilitate conversations 

with police about appropriate solutions. 

Police managers can then use the 

information to allocate resources better. 

What follows is a discussion of some 

examples of community oriented police 

information.

Online Crime Data for 

Communities 

Community-friendly web sites make 

information accessible in a variety 

of formats. The San Francisco Police 

Department’s CrimeMaps web site, (www.

sfgov.org/site/police_index.asp?id=23813), 

offers an easy search tool. Users can find 

information by type of offense, search 

within a 90-day period, or search by address 

or proximity to landmarks. They can view 

crime maps for a specific neighborhood, 

ZIP Code, or police district. Maps can 

also show mass transit routes, schools, and 

Neighborhood Watch areas. Results can be 

displayed as a data table or graphics chart. 

The web site’s crime information is updated 

daily. See Figure 1.

Large cities are not alone in providing 

community-friendly police data. Even 

relatively modest-sized communities and 

agencies offer online, interactive access to 

local crime information. Beaverton, Oregon, 

has a population of 76,000. Its police 

department’s web site (beavertonpolice.

org/crime/maps_stats.aspx) has a crime 

maps and statistics section that offers 

flexible access to crime incident data. Users 

can search by crime type, date range, and 

location (including neighborhoods). The 

web site is current within a few weeks of 

when crimes occur. 

Other web developers and Internet 

services such as Google are now promoting 

programming tools or creating web sites 

that obtain data from public agencies and 

publish it using new applications. Called 

“mashups,” these applications help visitors 

better understand and use data by offering 

innovative capabilities and often integrating 

information from multiple sources.

An impressive mashup example is 

EveryBlock (www.everyblock.com). 

EveryBlock currently collects a wide range 

of public records and local news articles 

from 15 major U.S. cities. The information 

is presented in data tables, bar charts, and 

maps, each of which can be displayed at 

various levels of detail (including individual 

neighborhoods). EveryBlock strives to 

provide residents with information about 

relevant concerns in their community. The 

easy-to-use interface requires little technical 

knowledge to find specific information. 

Despite managing large volumes of 

frequently changing data, this web site is 

supported by a staff of only six. See Figure 2.

Figure 1. The San Francisco Police Department's web site offers crime maps showing communities 

and Neighborhood Watch areas along with other information layers.
1616

G&PS | December 2009

Government Participation 

A new philosophy suggests that citizens 

can be significant partners in information 

dissemination, not merely passive consumers. 

Some government leaders are exploring the 

potential of interactive web technologies that 

are developed by third parties. The District 

of Columbia government, for example, has 

sponsored two competitions called Apps for 

Democracy (www.appsfordemocracy.org/). 

These challenged citizens to develop web 

applications using datasets that the city made 

available for public use. Prizes were awarded to 

the best submissions.

What was most interesting about these 

submissions was the difference between the 

agencies’ and the citizens’ perspectives in how 

information was used. Government agencies 

tend to view information according to their 

organizational responsibilities and how they are 

structured, while citizens want data formatted 

for their information needs. One submission, 

for example, helped pedestrians plan trips by 

combining crime, transportation, and accident 

data. A second helped homebuyers concerned 

with safety discover crime rates in potential 

new neighborhoods by integrating vacant real 

estate locations and crime data. A third helped 

pedestrians plan safe routes home from bars. It 

displayed maps of local bars and overlaid these 

with violent crime incidents (shown by day, 

evening, or night). 

With the release of the Office of Management 

and Budget’s (OMB) Data.gov web site, 

which provides public access to a wide range 

of datasets from various agencies, the Federal 

Government hopes to repeat the success of the 

Washington, D.C., mashups experiment. They 

hope the citizens will use the information to 

create new data applications and analysis tools. 

Conclusion 

Working with citizens will improve law 

enforcement’s ability to analyze data and 

present it in a useful format for the general 

public. Police agencies should begin exploring 

the opportunities for improving community 

relations by providing interactive web 

applications that include crime and public 

safety reports and neighborhood-level data. As 

we move into the next generation of web sites, 

the public will consider static dissemination 

of information in fixed report formats and 

categories unacceptable. If approached 

creatively, a community-friendly, interactive 

web site can be an effective and productive asset 

to a department’s community policing strategy.

Figure 2. Chicago’s EveryBlock web site uses graphics to effectively display data in different dimensions 

and enables users to easily drill down to details.
17

Since 2005, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention 

(OJJDP), in connection with other federal 

agencies and partners, has been developing 

the Socioeconomic Mapping and Resource 

Topography (SMART) System (http://

smart.gismapping.info). SMART is an 

online geographic information system that 

creates maps depicting the following: 

 Areas with high rates of crime and 

delinquency

 Government and community resources 

that help prevent and control crime 

and delinquency. 

OJJDP uses SMART to show how 

technology can do the following:

 Provide federal leadership

 Enhance interagency cooperation and 

coordination

 Empower communities

 Emphasize evidence based and proven 

practices. 

The SMART System allows users to use 

mapping technology to locate incidents 

of crime and delinquency and other social 

indicators. Mapping helps users visualize 

the data, and they can use the system to 

perform complex, location-based analysis 

that ultimately leads to better decisionmaking. It helps decision-makers identify 

crime problems early on and provide 

rapid interventions and responses at the 

neighborhood level. 

SMART users can also use the system to 

find local resources that prevent crime 

and provide services for children. The 

resources depicted in the SMART System 

include Boys and Girls Clubs, YMCAs, 

police departments and their jurisdictions 

(including tribal law enforcement and 

sheriff’s departments), libraries, youth 

courts, Weed and Seed sites, school 

boundaries, and the locations of model 

programs identified by OJJDP (http://

ojjdp.ncjrs.org/Programs/mpg.html). 

Along with creating maps and finding 

resources, SMART uses tables and graphs to 

provide large sets of data on socioeconomic 

factors such as housing, population, crime, 

health, and mortality. Several hundred 

data sets are currently maintained within 

the SMART System. Data sources include 

the U.S. Census Bureau and Uniform 

Crime Report data from OJJDP’s Statistical 

Briefing Book. These sources include 

more than 10 years of national crime 

and delinquency data and information 

regarding population, economic conditions, 

race and ethnicity, educational attainment, 

and housing. 

The Socioeconomic Mapping and Resource 

Topography (SMART) System 

Dennis Mondoro

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention

Washington, D.C.

NEWS BRIEFS

Madison Fights 

Crime Problems 

with Neighborhood 

Indicators Program

Local government in Madison, Wisconsin, 

has funded a neighborhood indicators 

program in an effort to stop street crime. 

The program tracks population characteristics, 

including age, race, poverty, education, 

income, and type of housing. Users of the 

program can compare one neighborhood to 

another or to the citywide average. Currently, 

only five neighborhoods are profiled by the 

program, but the others will be added by 

October.

Madison police hope that the program 

will give them a better understanding 

of area neighborhoods so that they can 

deploy resources to meet citizens’ needs. 

This information will allow them to see 

the warning signs of neighborhood stress, 

so that problems can be addressed quickly, 

before citizens resort to crime.

To find out more about Madison’s 

Neighborhood Indicators Pilot Program, 

compare neighborhood indicators, or map 

a variable, go to: www.planning.wisc.edu/

madison/Index.html.

Fort Myers Creates 

a Crime-Mapping 

Web Site

The Fort Myers (Florida) Police Department 

recently created a public web site that allows 

local residents to find and track crime in 

their neighborhoods. 

Users can select what types of crime they 

want to see and track where the crimes occur. 

This may help them know what routes home 

are safest at night or what crimes they should 

watch out for on local streets.

“The easier we can provide the information 

to [citizens], make it more accessible, the 

better for the public and the better for 

the police department,” Fort Myers police 

Captain Rich Carr told NBC news. 

Fort Myers’s crime mapping web site is 

available at: www.fmpolice.com.

The Washington

Post Helps New 

Renters Find 

Neighborhood 

Facts

Moving to a new city or apartment? Public 

access web sites can help you find out what’s 

going on in your neighborhood. 

A recent article in The Washington Post

names a number of web sites that can help 

make the transition to a new community 

easier. They include the following:
1818

G&PS | December 2009

 EveryBlock (www.everyblock.com). Provides 

news stories, crime reports, and other civic 

information for 15 cities. Information is 

available by street block.

 NewsVoyager (www.newsvoyager.com). Allows 

users to search local, international, and college 

newspapers.

 Outside (http://outside.in). Provides links to 

news stories from local newspapers, TV stations, 

blogs, and message boards by city. Stories can 

also be listed by neighborhood. 

 Relocation Essentials (wwwrelocationessentials.

com). Provides information on cost of living, 

tax rates, crime, and school quality. Site users 

can make comparisons between nearby towns.

 Relocation (http://relocation.com). Gives 

quotes on mortgages and insurance in a specific 

town and allows users to search for apartments.

Baltimore County 

Police Agree to Release 

Crime Information to 

Newspaper Reporters

When a dozen youth robbed a man at gunpoint in 

Towson, Maryland, police e-mailed local residents. 

Residents sent the message to The Baltimore Sun. 

But Baltimore County police were upset that The

Baltimore Sun had received word of the robbery. 

According to Sergeant Stephen Fink, who sent 

the e-mail, news media should only receive crime 

news that was “properly prepared for public 

information.” Fink was dismayed that Sun reporters 

had received the resident e-mail, and warned the 

public that the Towson Precinct would only provide 

information to those who kept quiet. 

According to a number of policemen, feeding 

newspapers local e-mails about crime information 

may make it more difficult to capture an offender. 

In some cases, they have threatened to take 

legal action against writers who try to make the 

information public.

The Baltimore Sun disagrees. It has tried for years 

to get local police departments to provide regular 

crime information so that city residents and 

residents of counties surrounding Baltimore can 

provide raw crime data to residents who want to 

know what locations are safe. They cite examples 

such as the Washington (D.C.) Metropolitan Police 

Department, which provides an official crime 

mapping web site for residents. 

Writes Sun reporter Peter Hermann, “What cops 

don’t like is ceding control of how information 

is interpreted. It’s better for them if they tell us 

they’ve arrested a suspect in six break-ins on York 

Road than for us to piece the attacks together using 

lists like the Weekly Crime Report and write an 

article before detectives have caught someone.” He 

says that reporters can now best receive information 

online, rather than tracking down reports at a 

police station.

Just recently the Baltimore County police changed 

their minds. They decided information sharing 

would best benefit neighborhoods if reporters 

knew about local crimes too. And Fink added The

Baltimore Sun to his crime report mailing list.

Do More Police Equal 

Less Crime?

In response to rising rates of burglaries and 

larcenies in 2008, the police department in 

Columbia, Missouri, proposed using a geographybased community policing approach that would 

place more officers in each neighborhood. Police 

hoped that extra officers in the streets would arrest 

or ticket offenders for minor violations, and that 

the extra attention could deter major crimes.

Although most citizens were invigorated and 

enthusiastic, some wondered whether greater police 

presence would actually help reduce crime. 

As it turns out, police struggle with this question 

frequently. 

The answer varies based on the amount of crime in 

an area. A small city tends to have about 1.8 officers 

per 1,000 residents. Cities with high crime rates, 

like Detroit, may have as many as 3 officers per 

1,000 residents. 

Tim Burton, Columbia’s police chief, says it is 

a matter of understanding community needs. 

“Once you get close to the capacity of officers 

[a department wants to hire], you can honestly 

assess what you have available and whether you’re 

properly and adequately serving the needs of the 

people,” he told reporters at the Columbia Daily 

Tribune. 
19

Chicago Web 

Site Helps 

High-Poverty 

Neighborhoods 

Find Tutors and 

Mentors

The Chicago web site Tutor/Mentor 

Connection uses geographic information 

systems to help Chicago residents find 

student tutors and mentoring programs in 

impoverished neighborhoods. 

Chicago residents can search for tutoring and 

mentoring programs in their parts of the city, 

using an interactive tutoring program locator 

that highlights programs on a map. Similarly, 

tutors can use the tool to search for programs 

that may need their services.

Also, to try to strengthen tutoring and 

mentoring programs in poor neighborhoods, 

the web site connects city geographic maps 

to news stories about crime, poor school 

performance, and poverty. These maps show 

locations of businesses, hospitals, churches, 

or government offices that might help with 

tutoring and mentoring outreach. 

The web site’s creators hope that the maps 

will help local communities find places for 

new tutoring and mentoring programs and 

encourage them to create partnerships.

To find out more about Tutor/

Mentor Connection, go to: www.

tutormentorprogramlocator.net.

GeoDesign Summit

January 6–8, 2010 

in Redlands, California

www.geodesignsummit.com/

Worldwide Public Safety 

Symposium

January 26–28, 2010

in Redmond, Washington

www.mspublicsafetysymposium.

com/

Western Society of Criminology 

2010 Conference

February 4–6, 2010

in Honolulu, Hawaii 

www.sonoma.edu/ccjs/wsc/

conference.htm

Delaware GIS

February 10, 2010

in Dover, Delaware

www.degis.org/

ESRI Federal User Conference

February 17–19, 2010

in Washington, D.C.

www.esri.com/events/feduc/index.

html

Redlands GIS Week

February 22–26, 2010

in Redlands, California

www.redlandsgisweek.org/

Academy of Criminal Justice 

Sciences

February 23–27, 2010

in San Diego, California

www.acjs.org/

pubs/167_668_2915.cfm

International Conference on Data 

Engineering

March 1–6, 2010

in Long Beach, California

icde2010.org/

National States Geographic 

Information Council 2010 Midyear 

Conference

Match 7–10, 2010

in Annapolis, Maryland

www.nsgic.org/events/2010_

midyear.cfm

Where 2.0 Conference

March 30–April 1, 2010

in San Jose, California

en.oreilly.com/where2010/

Association of American 

Geographers

April 14–18, 2010

in Washington, D.C.

www.aag.org annualmeetings/

2010/index.htm

CalGIS 2010

April 18–21, 2010

in Huntington Beach, California

www.urisa.org/calgis/info

Navigator 2010

April 28–30, 2010

in Orlando, Florida

www.emergencydispatch.org/

NAVIGATOR/index.php

The NIJ Conference 2010

June 14–16, 2010

in Arlington, Virginia

www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/events/

nij_conference/welcome.htm

ESRI International User 

Conference

July 12–16, 2010

in San Diego, California

www.esri.com/events/uc/index.

html

Geography and Public Safety Events

Dealing with crime problems in a local law enforcement agency sometimes means reaching out to other local 

agencies to come up with a solution. The events listed here are good opportunities to learn what mapping 

professionals and those in related areas are doing, get new ideas, and present your work. 
U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Community Oriented Policing Services

1100 Vermont Avenue, N.W.

Washington, DC 20530

To obtain details on COPS programs, call the 

COPS Office Response Center at 800.421.6770

Visit COPS Online at www.cops.usdoj.gov

COPS Editorial Staff 

Nicole Scalisi

Social Science Analyst

Office of Community Oriented Policing Services

Judith Beres

Editor

Office of Community Oriented Policing Services

Sandra Sharpe

Graphic Designer

Office of Community Oriented Policing Services

MAPS Editorial Staff 

Ron Wilson

Program Manager/Social Science Analyst 

National Institute of Justice

Timothy Brown

Research Associate (Contractor)

National Institute of Justice

Ariel Whitworth

Communications Editor

National Criminal Justice Reference Service

e12093245

Visit NIJ Online at www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij

The opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations contained in this publication are those of 

the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S Department 

of Justice. References to specific agencies, companies, products, or services should not be 

considered an endorsement by the authors or the U.S. Department of Justice. Rather, the references 

are illustrations to supplement discussion of the issues.