Abstract

Crime analysis and mapping in New Orleans post-Hurricane Katrina
Track: Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice
Authors: Pauline cotelle

Post-disaster urban contexts constitute highly dynamic environments. Then, how can we effectively manage crime risk? Katrina has led to urban changes in New Orleans. According to environmental theories of crime,socio-demographic and physical characteristics of places constitute factors that influence crime patterns and trends. Understanding how crime has evolved after Katrina, using crime mapping and spatial analysis can be useful for future post-disaster situations.Using spatial analysis tools and density maps to see how crime moved through time and place would help understand the links between geographic factors and crime dynamic. The results show that crime after Katrina has been greatly influenced by socio-demographic and physical changes as well as recovery policies putting in place. This work can be useful in the future since it allows establishing correlations between spatial characteristics and crime in a particularly uncertain context. The use of crime analysis, mapping and modeling is aim at helping decision making.