Crime Maps

Crime maps offer a visual component to crime data and statistics. It allows criminologists, law enforcement analysts, and sociologists to understand the connections between demographic data and criminal incidents. However, sociologists and criminologists must be careful to refrain from drawing illogical conclusions or inferring a false causal relationship. In some cases, crime maps are more useful in terms of helping law enforcement officials allocate resources than they are in making assumptions about demographic components in crime.

Crime maps can also be used to help public policy officials create more effective programs for a target demographic. In the case of Riverside, there is no clear relationship between race and crime. Criminal incidents are scattered throughout the county. However, there are a few core regions of concern and both contain high numbers of non-blacks. This information suggests that African-American neighborhoods in Riverside have lower rates of crime than non-black neighborhoods. Law enforcement programs and neighborhood crime watch programs should target the areas indicated in red.

Furthermore, the maps of Riverside, California reveal several hot spots of crime. A central corridor running diagonally from the northeast to the southwest has generally higher rates of crime than in other parts of the city. Pigeon Pass in the northeastern corner of the city, for example, has a peak rate of crime. Only a few other regions are red on the crime map. That same area, the Pigeon Pass neighborhood, has a relatively low density of African-American residents.

One of the areas with a high density of African-Americans is the southeastern corner bordered by Lurin, Barton, and Taft. This area has a low rate of crime. Two of the areas with peak rates of crime are of unknown ethnic composition, based on the maps. These are inadequate maps with vague demographic data. For instance, the maps do not clarify what ethnic groups besides African-American reside in non-black areas. These areas might be white, Asian, Hispanic, or mixed.

The only demographic variable that seems to be clearly inversely correlated with rates of crime is gender. The few regions with more female vs. male residents are also regions with lower rates of crime. This suggests that males tend to commit more crimes than females, which is something that sociologists, criminologists, and law enforcement officials do not need maps to tell them. What these maps do show is how the general public has misconceptions about the connection between race and crime.

African-American communities are stereotyped as being communities with high rates of crime. In Riverside, California, this does not appear to be the case. Rather, non-black neighborhoods in Riverside exhibit higher crime rates and higher densities of crime. One other issue with these maps is that the types of crime are not clarified. Similarly, the maps do not indicate whether the red spots relate to greater number of crimes per capita in that neighborhood, or greater frequency of crime.