Crime Mapping: A Journal of Research and Practice

Co-Editors Timothy C. Hart, Ph.D. & Paul Zandbergen, Ph.D

• ISSN: 1942-0927 (Print) • ISSN: 2152-9876 (Online)

Keywords: Environmental Criminology, Crime Analysis, Space, Time, and Crime

Article Price: $18.99

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Effects of Data Quality on Predictive Hotspot Mapping
TIMOTHY C. HART and PAUL A. ZANDBERGEN
Abstract | Pp. 32–49 |

Most types of crime analysis, including predictive hotspot mapping, rely heavily on geocoded crime locations, but errors in geocoding can be substantial. The current project aims to contribute to the improved robustness of predictive crime analysis by investigating the effect of data quality on predictive hotspot mapping techniques. The specific research objectives are to 1) determine empirical descriptions of the quality of a range of "typical" geocoding techniques employed in crime mapping, including their completeness, positional accuracy and repeatability; 2) characterize the effects of data quality on the robustness of selected predictive crime hotspot mapping techniques; and 3) determine the optimum parameters for predictive crime hotspot mapping techniques given a range of typical data quality parameters within the context of the accuracy and precision of hotspot prediction.

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