Geography and Public Safety: A Quarterly Bulletin of Applied Geography for the Study of Crime & Public Safety, Volume 1, Issue 2

Geographic information systems (GIS) and other information technologies can help police enforce traffic safety. While police departments have long used GIS for crime mapping, few departments in the United States use it for law enforcement. Articles in this issue of Geography and Public Safety discuss how GIS technologies can be used for traffic safety analysis and were written by authors representing the States of Texas, New Mexico, California, and Idaho. Tom Beretich discusses how maps have been used to examine drunk driving in Albuquerque, NM and provides an important example of how well-designed maps influence public policy. Jeff Kaufman examines a GIS-based spatial information system that was developed in Houston, TX to identify crash hot spots, initiate safety engineering projects, and develop law enforcement strategies. Janeena Wing describes how an Idaho center used statistical analysis to advise state patrolling practices. Phil Mielke offers a technical piece which assists GIS users with common tasks. Law enforcement plays a critical role in supporting traffic safety. Law enforcement officers devote significant time and energy to dealing with traffic safety, from managing crash scenes and filling out crash reports to creating strategies to reduce crash rates. This issue of Geography and Public Safety is intended to facilitate law enforcement’s and other agencies’ interest in focusing analyses on traffic safety issues. Figures, notes, and references