Technology's Ways: Information Technology, Crime Analysis and the Rationalizing of Policing

The rationalization of policing, linking ends and means, and evaluating the consequences of policies and actions, is progressing in policing. It can be seen in budgeting, career planning, crime audits and performance indicators and goals. One of most powerful tools with capacity, if applied `on the ground,' to prevent, reduce and control crime and disorder is crime analysis. This case study of crime mapping and crime analysis in one American department, done with interviews and observations in 1999, shows that in spite of progress in knowledge about levels and kinds of social disorganization, repeat offenders, clusters of problems and incidents, crime mapping has no operational effects. The lack of infrastructure of support and interpretation; the distribution of the information, isolated and unintegrated databases, and lack of on-line access by patrol officers, renders the extant software and analytic capacity ineffectual. Some suggestions are made that might link the capacity with practice.