Is violent crime more prevalent near public housing developments than elsewhere? Because police departments don't generate crime statistics that are specific to public housing developments, the data to answer this question has not been generally available. Therefore, public perceptions and public policy have been formulated without concrete data. The GIS was used to generate catchment zones similar to police precincts around public housing developments in three uniquely different cities. The address matched locations of all reported Part I crimes were then overlaid to count crimes and calculate crime rates within these zones, producing interesting and useful results.