Development of a Crime Mapping, Analysis and Prediction Tool for Windhoek

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the conceptual, technical and human aspects of how the Namibian Police Force can adopt the use of crime maps in its operations and reap the benefits thereof. Another aim was to find out how GIS information can be integrated with crime data to help in the analysis of crime and in understanding crime patterns. Interviews were conducted with various units of the Namibian Police Force. The findings of the interviews were combined with knowledge gained from an extensive literature review to produce a prototype of the crime mapping tool that allows user interaction with the data. The use of this prototype was then demonstrated with sample crime maps to pairs of officers from four different police units followed by interviews and questionnaires to record the users’ perception of the tool. While the prototype is a proof of concept for the technical feasibility, the final evaluation revealed that crime mapping can indeed be implemented across many units of the Namibian Police Force and that the participants found the tool to be conceptually very useful. GIS data can be integrated with crime data to better understand why certain crimes occur in certain places.