GIS and Law Enforcement

Over the past few decades of improvements in technology, Criminal Justice system pushed hard to provide most advanced services to their clients and communities. Public safety is at outmost importance in daily operations of Law Enforcement agencies throughout the country. Thanks to remote sensing capabilities and advancements in GIS, Criminal Justice system gained a powerful tool that allowed agencies for greater control and better understanding of their surroundings and work environments. Using geographical data, urban topography, and massive datasets of criminal statistics Law Enforcements was able to create a Crime Mapping tool that allowed to pinpoint criminal activity, analyze crime patterns, and most of all provide a more informed, resourceful, and proactive response.
 
Crime Mapping became a powerful tool in fighting crime and is now used in most of Police departments across the country. By visualizing crime patterns and discovering criminal hot spots within the jurisdiction, Police agencies are able to focus their attention on areas that need greater police presence than others. This allows for a more resourceful and more informed use of police time. By visualizing the environment through remote sensing and use of imagery, Law Enforcement is able to determine more appropriate placement of police units, more efficient patrol routes, and quicker response times.
 
GIS and remote sensing provide Criminal Justice system and Public Safety agencies with live feedback about their environment. Such accurate information becomes critical in emergency situations where time is of outmost importance. Live feedback allows the command center to provide most accurate information to their responders, have a live feedback of the situation from above, and create a best plan of actions.

 

There are many other applications of remote sensing in Criminal justice beyond mapping urban environments and creating hot spots of crime. Remote sensing and thermal imagery is often used by law enforcement and boarder patrol agencies in locating individuals that might be hiding in dense vegetation or hard to penetrate urban areas. This thermal imagery will pick up body heat f individuals exposing their location. Such technique is very often used at night by placing a thermal capability camera on top a helicopter and circling around a desired area looking for heat signatures. In addition to thermal imagery, infrared bands might be used in search of artificial cover among dense vegetation while looking for hidden drug operations. In many western states such operations are done in dense forests and covered up with camouflage in order to prevent aerial detection. Infrared band combined with other bands is capable of detecting different signatures and very easily distinguishing what is a real vegetation and what is artificial vegetation very often used as camouflage. Other electromagnetic waves used in remote sensing such as microwaves might be used to detect things underground, therefore there are many other uses other than crime mapping that are available for law enforcement depending on their need.
 
In conclusion, GIS and remote sensing of urban environment combined with appropriate software and data give Law Enforcement agencies and Criminal Justice system tools necessary to fight crime, respond to emergencies, and keep peace in communities they serve.