In an article for Sustainability, author Byungyun Yang studies the application of GIS technologies with the goal of supporting local communities. Specifically, he seeks to “provide thematic maps with geospatial information regarding the distribution of gun-related crimes [in Chicago] to community residents and research groups as a means to help them to better identify and understand hotspot trends of the gun-related crimes and community resources such as locations of schools, parks, and safe passage routes” (Yang 2019). In the article, Yang poses his main arguments as three primary questions to be answered in the study:
- “How can GIS experts contribute to communities’ efforts to collect, use, and create community resources?”
- “What kinds of visualization techniques can assist in spatially understanding hotspot trends of gun-related crimes and to investigate changes in safe passage routes in the city of Chicago?”
- What are the best geospatial approaches to share a community’s spatial information or knowledge and promote researchers and community residents’ engagement in supporting evidence-based solutions for current challenges?
He argues that in order for research efforts to be most effective, research and data must be presented in a form that is easily accessible to both researchers and residents alike. Previous challenges that he faced included an issue of inaccessibility due to most of the data being recorded as numbers and descriptions that would be difficult for the layman to effectively interpret. This did not encourage community engagement, so Yang explores the implementation of volunteered geographic information as a method to promote active research participation by the communities (2019).
Yang’s method is presented as a three-step schematic design:
- Collect data on gun-related incidents between 2012 and 2017 from the Chicago data portal and mapping it.
- Conducting Kernel density analysis, optimized hotspot analysis, and emerging hot spot analysis in order to determine crime hotspots as they relate to community resources such as schools.
- Develop a web-enabled GIS application that collects and shares spatial information between researchers and residents
As a method to increase community participation, Yang’s process appears to be effective. His research effectively visualizes gun crime data in a manner that clearly presents areas where gun violence appears to be more abundant than others. The application that is developed in this study is also an effective tool for enabling the public to assist efforts in monitoring and reducing crime rates in local communities. GIS plays a critical role in these functions. As Yang states, “GIS is an ideal platform to support the needs of both local communities and researchers because it provides a spatial representation of community relationships [and] delivers improved communication by providing visualized spatial information that informs decision-making” (2019).
Some issues that were identified in Yang’s study included inconsistent density classes in the geospatial analysis. This made it difficult to directly compare crime rates between the different study areas. In addition, the classes themselves were not clearly defined. It is my understanding that the hotspots are measuring counts of gun-related incidents, although that may be incorrect. With regards to the community participation, the efficacy of data is entirely reliant on the capabilities and reliability of participants, so special care must be taken when examining any collected data.
Gun violence is a dominant concern throughout America today, and Yang displays how GIS can play an important role in affecting the decision-making process with regards to combating crime. This study was conducted with respectable ability, and having compared its strengths and weaknesses, I rate the paper a 7/10.
Sources:
Yang, B. (2019). GIS Crime Mapping to Support Evidence-Based Solutions Provided by Community-Based Organizations. Sustainability, 11(18), 4889. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11184889