A Crime Forecasting Tool for the Web-Based Crime Analysis Toolkit

Abstract

In this paper, we outline the development of a crime forecasting tool for law enforcement applications. This tool implements a spatial discrete choice model (DCM) that takes into account the attributes of locations and the preferences of criminals in selecting target locations. Other steps required for development were the acquisition of data and the selection of suitable software components. Once these design decisions were made the components were integrated with the Web-Based Crime Analysis Toolkit to make the tool available to crime analysts throughout Virginia.