WEBVTT

00:00:07.000 --> 00:00:11.000
Mapping's huge in criminal justice right now. It's a growing field; it's pretty new.

00:00:11.000 --> 00:00:21.000
One of the things is that there are very few people in the field that have had the formal training with the software that we're using.

00:00:21.000 --> 00:00:26.000
Professor: Today we have about an hour to finish up our neighborhood analysis projects.

00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:33.000
Here at Western, I teach a 3 course series on geographic information systems for the crime analysis concentration which includes

00:00:33.000 --> 00:00:41.000
a range of topics from basic map use and reading to creating maps and data aggregation and spacial and statistical analysis. 

00:00:41.000 --> 00:00:47.000
GIS is Geographic Information Systems. At the most basic level, it's computer mapping software. 

00:00:47.000 --> 00:00:55.000
At the more complex level, it gets into very explicitly spacial models and modeling how the world functions geographically. 

00:00:55.000 --> 00:00:63.000
For those going into the crime analysis profession, it's really, really important to be able to make maps for distributing information.

00:01:03.000 --> 00:01:10.000
It's really a very good way of distributing a lot of information in a very small format. For students who don't go into the crime analysis profession,

00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:14.000
it's really important they can read those maps their crime analysts are giving them. 

00:01:14.000 --> 00:01:17.000
Student: In this bottom left section, you see there is high...

00:01:17.000 --> 00:01:26.000
Professor: Today's assignment was for the students to create a series of maps on Portland's neighborhoods to compare demographic information to 

00:01:26.000 --> 00:01:29.000
crime information and local patterns. 

00:01:29.000 --> 00:01:36.000
Student: In my project today, my results showed that there was a higher rate of crime in areas where there was lower educational attainment.

00:01:36.000 --> 00:01:42.000
Professor: What I liked about Mike's project most was that it really highlighted the relationship between the level of education of people

00:01:42.000 --> 00:01:52.000
in a neighborhood and crime rates in those neighborhoods. Ideally, if we can identify the locations where crimes tend to be happening, 

00:01:52.000 --> 00:01:56.000
we can efficiently distribute resources to reduce crime overall. 

00:01:56.000 --> 00:01:63.000
Student: What I like best about the criminal justice classes at Western is that they really prepare you for the criminal justice field.

00:02:03.000 --> 00:02:11.000
There are classes like substance abuse and GIS courses. You can take the skills you learn from those and directly apply them 

00:02:11.000 --> 00:02:14.000
when you graduate and go into the field.