Chapel Hill's crime rate, for example, went up last year, and the chief of police made the comment that Durham was pushing the criminals over there and that could be possibly true. It allows you to pool your resources, it allows you to do more with less. Regions are important because many activities, including those related to law enforcement, commonly extend over a large geographical area that encompasses many jurisdictions. This is true of criminal activities as well. It is not possible for a single jurisdiction to deal effectively with problems like environmental protection, solid waste, traffic congestion, or crime.
Crime especially is a problem that involves cross-jurisdictional mobility.
Councils of Government are among the few existing regional structures with extensive GIS experience, though not yet mobilized on behalf of law enforcement problems. With a more regional approach to analyzing crimes, police officers would be in a better position to detect patterns and to cooperate in the apprehension of highly mobile criminals. Not only can you map them, but you can go in and look at the individual cases and analyze those, the clusters that you find, for all the factors the who, what, when, where, and why, as well. North Carolina's regional councils are unique as places where officials from many jurisdictions can come together and discuss a wide range of common issues, including regional crime analysis. Regional councils in North Carolina have a generally positive record in filling certain major functions, including serving as regional forums, providing service and assistance to local governments, and operating data centers.