Prospective crime mapping in operational context Final report

observation made by those who used the system was that when used it helped to focus theirattention on the problem and how they might reduce it.As a further testament to police officer acceptance of the usefulness of the system, a numberasked if it could be used to predict incidents of vehicle crime. Since completing the pilot, it hasbeen shown (Johnson et al., 2006) that patterns of theft from motor vehicle (TFMV) conformto the same spatial and temporal patterns as burglary and hence the answer to this questionis likely to be yes. Thus, an anticipated future development of the system would be to facilitatepredictions of TFMV also.Thus, from the perspective of the evaluation, the pilot served to demonstrate police officeracceptance of, and confidence in, the system, and to show that it could be used in anoperational setting without disrupting other activity. Important lessons were learned in relationto the dissemination of the maps. Initially, it was thought that the analysts could generate anddistribute the maps, with Section Sergeants having only to look at the output. However, it wassoon felt that the sections would benefit from being able to interrogate and navigate the mapsthemselves, thereby allowing them to gain a more detailed picture of the problem. Thesolution to this problem was straightforward, but for a variety of logistical reasonsimplementation of it occurred too late in the evaluation period to have any potential impact oncrime.58