U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice.

NCJRS Virtual Library

The Virtual Library houses over 235,000 criminal justice resources, including all known OJP works.
Click here to search the NCJRS Virtual Library

Adoption of Computerized Crime Mapping by Municipal Police Departments in New Jersey

NCJ Number
204217
Journal
Security Journal Volume: 17 Issue: 1 Dated: 2004 Pages: 51-59
Author(s)
Sharon Chamard
Date Published
2004
Length
9 pages
Annotation
This article discusses a survey on municipal police departments in New Jersey currently doing computerized crime mapping, as well as how long they had used the innovation.
Abstract
Computerized crime mapping has spread among police departments in a pattern typical of the diffusion of other innovations. However, past studies have primarily focused on large police departments, so less is known about crime mapping diffusion among small departments. This study explored the diffusion of computer crime mapping among 347 municipal police departments in New Jersey, and sought to describe how crime mapping spread throughout the State over time, and what demographic factors explained adoption or non-adoption. The results show the overall rate of adoption as of the end of 2002 was 13.8 percent. Department size was strongly associated with mapping use. Agencies with 100 or more sworn full-time officers were 6 times more likely to have adopted crime mapping than agencies with fewer than 10 officers. There was no evidence of hierarchical diffusion. Large departments had not typically adopted the innovation earlier than had small departments. Obstacles to crime mapping adoption included technological demands and lack of resources to buy software and equipment. Provision of feasible crime mapping training at local universities and community colleges could support the technological needs. If inexpensive systems do exist, police departments may not know about them, or are hesitant to approach vendors for more details. The local government could collect and assess information from vendors, and then distribute it, free of technical jargon, to departments across the State. Another approach to facilitate crime mapping outside large urban areas is multi-jurisdictional mapping systems. 2 tables, 1 figure, 33 notes