Charting a New Direction: Exploring the Future of Justice Mapping

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Abstract

Computerized mapping technology has become a valuable tool for law enforcement, criminal justice agencies, state and local policymakers, service providers, and community organizations working to understand and address problems related to crime, incarceration, and prisoner reentry. This research brief highlights innovative applications of mapping in the criminal justice field and discusses strategies for using mapping to inform justice policy and practice. The brief is based in part on a December 2007 meeting sponsored by the Urban Institute that brought together representatives from national criminal justice, social service, and government organizations to discuss justice mapping.

Introduction

As computerized mapping technology has become more affordable and accessible in the past decade, the use of maps has become an increasingly important component of efforts to develop safer communities. Mapping is now a valuable tool for law enforcement, criminal justice agencies, state and local policymakers, service providers, and community organizations working to understand and address problems related to crime, incarceration, and prisoner reentry. It has been employed to develop more equitable and effective criminal justice policies, allocate limited resources efficiently, and educate and engage the public on crime and justice topics.

This research brief examines the new opportunities mapping has created for exploring and understanding criminal justice issues. The purpose of the brief is to highlight what has already been accomplished through justice mapping and to examine cutting edge developments in the field, including the incorporation of mapping into larger justice-related planning and service delivery initiatives.

What is Justice Mapping?

Justice mapping is the use of geographic information systems (GIS), a computerized mapping technology, as a tool to understand the spatial dynamics of criminal justice issues such as crime, incarceration, and prisoner reentry. Mapping not only serves as a powerful tool for analyzing and displaying data, it also encourages new place-based approaches to problem solving. Rather than focusing on a topic or question in isolation, a place-based approach uses location as the key unit of analysis to explore the ways in which various social and political forces interact and affect neighborhoods and communities. In the justice arena, mapping helps us understand the impact of crime and justice policies on the communities in which we live and enables us to visualize the overlapping nature of challenges such as crime, reentry, poverty, poor health, low levels of education, and homelessness. Mapping can also highlight the resources available to meet these challenges, from service providers and community organizations to faith institutions, employers, schools, and supportive housing.

Maps can communicate large amounts of information quickly and simply. They can demonstrate truths about our communities—such as the fact that crime and incarceration disproportionately affect certain neighborhoods—in a powerful way that narratives and statistics often fail to accomplish. In communities around the country, justice mapping is being used to

• Describe and analyze justice problems and explore their relationship to other social challenges and community factors;
• Examine the impact of changes in a community—such as property foreclosures—on patterns of crime, incarceration, and prisoner reentry;
• Communicate information on criminal justice issues to the public, policymakers, government officials, service providers, and other interested parties;
• Determine the most appropriate allocation of resources by examining patterns of community need and analyzing where services and other resources can be located to maximize their effectiveness; and
• Explore the spatial component of proposed policy responses and evaluate the impact of new policies after they are implemented.

The sections below provide detailed examples of the important role mapping can play in efforts to understand and address crime, prisoner reentry, and other justice issues.

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