[Freegis-list] GIS and Crime Data

[Tim Greenhow]

You raise an interesting point, Adrian. It's one thing to map crimes 
like break-ins, car-thefts, muggings, rapes, murders that you can 
actually locate. Some of the economic crimes, political injustices, etc. 
are far harder to locate in one place and therefore very difficult to 
map without distortioin. Sometimes we see world maps showing levels of 
corruption by country. This is usually a gross distortion of reality, 
because the corruption is often very concentrated within any individual 
country, among a particular social or economic group, yet the impression 
given is that the entire population is corrupt to a given degree. Maps 
are like statistics - you can easily distort reality, and especially the 
whole reality - which I think is your point. So does anybody have an 
idea of how to map the swindling of shoreholders, or the impact of 
crimes like those committed within Enron, Anderson, WorldCom or 
whatever, to say nothing of crimes committed on or through the Internet?
Tim G.

Adrian Custer wrote:

>Hello,
>
>The issue is the claim that people are "mapping crime." We know we are
>not doing such a thing so we should be careful to state what we are
>doing. It's worth the ten-twenty minutes to think carefully about the
>semantics of what we want to present to the Whole Wide World. So if you
>are mapping crimes that could potentially hurt individuals and families
>through direct physical violence, then that is how you should try to
>present it. 
>
>My research in ecology and spatial analysis is all about what we can
>correctly claim to know and demonstrate. That's my personal kick. I hope
>to get a few people to think a tiny bit more about this correctness. GIS
>is deeply influencing public policy and I see an inherent tendency to
>assume that if a map shows an effect, the effect must exist. If we are
>going to do better than that then we will have to work pretty hard to
>really understand what we are doing. One of the first steps is to try to
>state what a map shows with as directed a language as possible. 
>
>cheers,
>adrian
>
>P.S. I assumed you were doing something cool. Most people on this list
>are 1) supporting Free software which is very cool 2) decent people
>willing to help others which is also very cool. Actually, I'd change the
>'Most people' to 'Everyone.'
>
>Thanks for building housing in DC. The Habitat for Humanity affiliate
>there got me to spend some time in a few new parts of town. D.C. could
>be a fantastic place with some commitment and hard work.
>
>The cigars reference came out of an incident of three cigar smoking
>policemen, two of whom were dragging and hassling a homeless man up near
>Adams Morgan in August 2001. When they realized that I was going to
>stand there and witness the whole incident, they funnily enough stopped
>dragging the man, took their cigars out of their mouths, started
>speaking more politely and finally gave up and drove away. Something
>about the juxtaposition of two big policemen smoking cigars and one
>frail, half drunk or really tired homeless man being dragged summed up
>my feelings about the state of the police force in DC.
>
>My other comments come from years dealing with the police officers in
>DC, going to court, reading the papers and tracking the money. Your
>project has been played out before (16th street when the cops wanted a
>raise back in the late 1980's if I remember correctly) so it gets me
>worked up. As you know, DC claimed to be "murder capital of the world
>for a while". You have to figure, with the sheer size of the US budget,
>it must be "embezzlement capital of the world" as well but no one has
>*ever* mentioned that.
>
>Apologies for my earlier posting. It was neither subtle, nor tactful,
>nor effective. Again, good luck doing whatever it is you are doing. 
>
>
>
>On Mon, 2003-01-20 at 07:41, Knox McIlwain wrote:
>  
>
>>Dear FreeGIS Community -
>>
>>Thank you so much for your generous help. I have a lot to chew on, but many
>>great pointers. I may be back with more questions in a bit. When we get a
>>system up and running, I will send you the link.
>>
>>Thanks.
>>
>>- Knox McIlwain
>>
>>PS - Adrian - I work for a non-profit affordable housing developer, not the
>>city or federal government. This is a volunteer citizen effort to decrease
>>the rate of armed robberies, rapes, and other violent assaults in my
>>neighborhood. I am pleased that you do not have these problems in Berkley -
>>maybe you can help us solve them. And DC power brokers don't smoke cigars -
>>that was the mid-90s.
>>
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>>    
>>
>
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