Urban crime mapping and analysis using open source

GIS tools: A case study from Rajahmundry municipal

area, Andhra Pradesh, India.
D. V. S. Sarma, K. V. Swamy

V. Ravi Kumar

Dept. of Geoinformatics, Adikavi Nannaya University,

Jayakrishna Puram, Rajahmundry, Andhra Pradesh.
sardevar@gmail.com, baalukandadai@gmail.com.

Joint Secretary, OSGeo-India.

12-11-120, Dr. A. B. Nageswara Rao Road
Aryapuram, Rajahmundry, Andhra Pradesh.
ravivundavalli@yahoo.com.

Abstract - A preliminary analysis of crime events reported in

different police stations (or circles) within Municipal
Corporation of Rajahmundry between January to June 2012 is
carried out. The analysis shows that III Town circle is highly
sensitive with respect to crime activities followed by I Town.
Maximum number of reported ordinary thefts, simple hurts
and road accidents were found from III Town circle and then
from I Town circle. The possible relationship between
community characteristics and type of localities in these circles
and crime data is discussed. Suggestions and requirements for
further improvement of crime mapping and analysis in
Municipal Corporation of Rajahmundry is discussed besides
how Geographic Information System can really help the police
department in curbing the crime rate.
Keywords crime mapping; crime types; analysis; geographic
information system.

I.

INTRODUCTION

Effective utilization of information technology in

public services is increasing throughout the world day by
day. As such Geographic Information System (GIS) has also
being put into effective use in crime mapping and analysis
in most of the developed nations [1,2]. However, its use is
found very limited in India and other developing countries
[3,4]. Access to and integration of location based
information through GIS compatible database allows police
personnel to respond quickly and effectively to the reported
crime events, to effectively analyze historical crime events
and also to visualize the future conditions in highly sensitive
areas. Accordingly they can plan their vigilance and other
activities in those areas. Above all, GIS also helps in
viewing criminal activities in an area comprehensively and
to analyze the relationship between crime patterns and
community characteristics etc. Thus in the present paper a
preliminary attempt has been made to study and map
various crime activities in the limits of Municipal
Corporation of Rajahmundry (MCR) and to analyze them
through an open source GIS software with respect to
community characteristics, type of localities etc.

II. STUDY AREA

Rajahmundry an historical town (Fig.1) situated on
the banks of the mighty Godavari River in Andhra Pradesh
State of India is a class I municipality. Its population is
about 3,15,000 according to 2001 census. MCR covers an
area of about 44.50 sq. km. and situated between Latitudes
160 59| & 170 2| N and Longitudes 810 45| 15|| & 810 49| E. It
was divided into 50 administrative wards. The entire MCR
area was under the surveillance of 4 Central Crime Stations
(CCS) and 4 Law & Order (L&O) police stations. Every
police station is headed by an officer of Inspector rank and
further sub divided into sectors headed by an officer of rank
Sub-Inspector. Locations of police stations in MCR area and
their corresponding administrative areas are also shown in
Fig.1.
III. DATA AND TOOLS
The attribute details regarding crime incidents
happened during first six months of the current calendar
year (2012) was collected, mapped and analyzed in this
paper. The District Crime Records Bureau (DCRB) office
situated in Rajahmundry urban police district campus in
Rajahmundry has provided the reported crime data for the
first two months i.e. January & February and for remaining
months i.e., March to June the data was collected from
crime news columns appearing in the local daily news
papers. The number of crime incidents according to the
crime type as reported and recorded in different months
under different police circles is shown in the table 1.
Accordingly a geo-database was created for further use in
crime mapping and analysis. Other attribute data like
location of slums, wine shops and traffic signals were
collected from MCR office and through field surveys and
are shown in Fig.2.
Open source GIS software (OpenJump) has been
utilized for the purpose of mapping, geo-database creation
and its utilization in this work. Built-in tools of OpenJUMP
are used for statistical analysis and extracting query based
information.

Figure 1. (a) Location of Municipal Corporation of

Rajahmundry in Andhra Pradesh.
(b) Jurisdiction of various police stations in
Municipal Corporation of Rajahmundry.

TABLE.1. DIFFERENT CRIME TYPES REPORTED AND RECORDED IN VARIOUS POLICE CIRCLES DURING THE PERIOD JANUARY TO JUNE 2012.

2
1

13

JUN

MAY

APR

MAR

FEB

IV TOWN CIRCLE
JUN

MAY

APR

MAR

FEB

JAN

JUN

III TOWN CIRCLE

JAN

MAY

CRIMINAL BREACH OF TRUST

APR

SIMPLE HURT

MAR

FEB

GRIEVOUS HURT

JAN

ORDINARY THEFTS

II TOWN CIRCLE
JUN

MAY

FEB

HOUSE BURGLARY'S BY NIGHT

APR

JAN

CRIME TYPE

MAR

I TOWN CIRCLE

14
1

68
2

11

22

KIDNAP

RAPE
CHEATING

ROAD ACCIDENTS

OTHER IPC
TOTAL

TOTAL

10

24

25

1
1

13

1
13

11

42

34

3
1

12
2

2
2

26

1
2

10

1
9

40
0

190

Figure 2. Spatial distribution of slums, wineshops and traffic signaling lights in police circles.

IV. ANALYSIS
The data thus collected about crime events occurred in
MCR area is analyzed as discussed below to find out
sensitive areas in MCR and also to find out possible
relationship between crime activities and surrounding
community characteristics etc.
The total number of crime events reported and
recorded during January and February in various police
circles is shown in Fig. 3(a) and that during March to June
(collected from news papers) in Fig. 3(b). The drastic fall in
total number of crime events during the months March to
June as shown in Fig. 3(b) may indicate that not all the
reported crime events are covered by the news papers or the
news papers were publishing only some events. Though
there is a drastic fall in the total number of crime events

reported during the period March to June for the reasons

mentioned above, the trend of reported crime events is
similar both for the periods January and February (with
official data) and March to June (with the data collected
from news papers). From the Fig. 3(a) it can be observed
that maximum number of crime events were reported in III
Town circle, followed by in I Town, II Town and IV Town
circles respectively. Fig. 3(c) shows the total number of
crime events recorded (DCRB data & News paper data put
together), during January to June 2012 in different police
circles. Thus from the figures 3(a), 3(b) and 3(c) it can be
inferred that III Town circle area is highly sensitive area in
MCR with regard to crime activities followed by I Town
area. So there is an urgent need to concentrate on III Town
and I Town circles by the police administration by focusing
on hot spots of crime events.

Figure 3. (a) Total number of crime events reported in various police circles during January and Febuary 2012 as collected from DCRB.
(b) Total number of crime events reported during March to June 2012 as collected from news paper.
(c) Total number of crime events (DCRB +news paper) reported from January to June 2012.

It is very interesting to note that the

concentration of number (34) of slums and number (12)
of wine shops is more in III Town circle area (Fig.2),
where maximum number (17) of simple hurts (caused
due to small street fights by drunkards) were recorded
and also maximum number (27) of ordinary thefts were
recorded. Surprisingly 50% of total house burglaries at
night time were reported from IV Town circle area,
where a sparse distribution of houses and minimum
number of street lights exists and also this circle covers
large area of outskirts or not fully developed part of
MCR. Also it is interesting to note that the I Town
circle area in which the prime business area falls has
recorded maximum number (5) of cheating cases during
the study period. Rajahmundry is known to be the one
of the biggest business centers in this part of the state
from its historical times. Huge amount of material
marketing like gold, cloth, whole sale general, house
hold goods, provisions and electronic goods etc. will
takes place from I Town circle area. Many of the
surrounding villages depend on this market area for
their day to day needs. Maximum number of banks and
also second largest number of slums are located in this
area. Out of total number (26) of road accidents
occurring in MCR maximum number (13) were from
III Town circle and next highest (7) accidents were
reported in I Town circle. This can be attributed to the
high traffic density, congested road network, bad road
conditions, lack of proper traffic regulations and oneway traffic, traffic lights etc.
V. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
This preliminary crime analysis with data available
at circle level from DCRB ties crime data with polygons
pertaining to police station jurisdiction and not with actual
location of crime. This poses a problem in visualizing crime
data through GIS. This can be improved if the actual
location or address of the crime is provided, thus making it
possible to map crime hot spots (point data). This can help
in policing the city effectively taking other parameters in the
neighborhood of the crime hot spots like wine shops,
bazaars and slums.
This work is carried out as a part of the ongoing
project entitled Web enabled GIS for e-governance of
Rajahmundry Municipal Corporation: An open source, GIS,
Remote Sensing & GPS approach sponsored by
Department of Science and Technology (DST) and MCR.
This work may be the first of its kind to be undertaken in
the entire state of Andhra Pradesh if not in south India. This
project aims at developing a GIS based information system
(both in English and in Telugu) exclusively for
Rajahmundry through which common man can record his
complaints at a web enabled citizens grievance redressal
website.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors are thankful to DST and MCR for their
financial support and the authorities of Rajahmundry urban

police district for their help, in providing the data.

REFERENCES
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GIS Approach to Crime Mapping and Management in Nigeria:
A Case Study of Victoria Island Lagos, Shaping the Change
XXIII FIG Congress Munich, Germany, October 8 13, 2006.
[2] Reagan McClung, Mapping: A New Direction in Victim
Services, Research Specialist, Office of the Texas Attorney
General, Crime Mapping News, Fall 2000.
[3] Antony K. Cooper and Peter M.U. Schmitz, Mapping Crime
Scenes and Cellular Telephone Usage in South Africa, Crime
Mapping News, winter, Fall 2001.
[4] Gupta.R, Rajitha.K, Basu.S, Mittal.S.K, Application of GIS in
Crime Analysis: A Gateway to Safe City, 7-9 February, 2012,
India Geospatial Forum.
AUTHORS PROFILE
D.V.S.Sarma
D. V. S. Sarma took M.Sc. degree in Geoinformatics from Adikavi
Nannaya University, Rajahmundry in 2010. Presently he is working as
project fellow in DST and MCR sponsored project entitled Web enabled
geographic information system for e-governance of Rajahmundry
Municipal Corporation: An open source GIS, Remote Sensing & GPS
approach.
K.V.Swamy
K.V.Swamy received Ph.D. degree in Geophysics in the year 2000 from
Andhra University, Visakhapatnam and has been awarded Dr.V. B. V.
Reddy research Gold Medal from the same university for the year 2000.
He has been on the faculty of the Department of Geoinformatics, Adikavi
Nannaya University, Rajahmundry since 2007. He worked as a scientist in
National Centre for Antarctic and Oceanic Research, Vasco, Goa and as
teaching associate in the Dept. of Geophysics, Andhra University before
joining Adikavi Nannaya University.
V.Ravi Kumar
V. Ravi kumar received M.Sc. degree in Geology and Applied Geology
from Andhra University. He employed as an Earth scientist, in the
Geological Survey of India since 1974 to 2008. He retired as a Director,
CGMT division of the GSI Training Institute, Hyderabad. He is a Life
member of Indian National Cartographers Association. He is a charter
member of OSGeo, the international body promoting Open Source
Geospatial technologies. He is a founder member and the Joint Secretary of
OSGeo India.