Whereas a larger jurisdiction will be able to hire one or more GIS experts who are already trained and experienced in crime analysis, the small to medium jurisdiction will rarely be able to do so. Those in the field observe that it is more effective to add GIS technical skills to a crime analyst than to add crime analysis capabilities to a GIS technician. Partly for this reason, by far the most common pattern in smaller jurisdictions is to designate an existing member of the crime analysis staff who must acquire GIS expertise and apply it to the local law enforcement environment largely on his or her own. In small and even medium jurisdictions, that person is the only crime analysis officer. The research findings of this chapter imply for public policy that the promotion of training opportunities must be a major priority for any funding strategy to promote the diffusion of crime mapping capabilities within the law enforcement agencies of small to medium North Carolina towns and cities.
Training is most effective when promoted simultaneously with infrastructure investment.
Also, there is a need to promote networking among crime mapping staff in North Carolina. It is common sense that a crime mapping staff person, however well-educated and trained in other respects, needs training in geographic information systems. Large jurisdictions may provide the only viable models. However, these jurisdictions had the luxury of hiring pre-trained and often experienced GIS experts, making them a poor model for small to medium jurisdictions. Other software packages, from word processing to statistical analysis, have often been integrated into the operation of even small to medium departments without substantial training efforts.