Crime Mapping in Urban Areas: Case Study City of Patras

Abstract

This paper presents the development of a Geographical Information System (GIS) designed to analyze the spatial distribution of violent and property crimes in the city of Patras, Greece, between 2007 and 2010. The geodatabase consists of 5,400 records categorized into 50 variables, covering crimes such as burglary, robbery, theft, and motor vehicle theft. The aim of the GIS is to support the study and analysis of criminal incidents in relation to urban environmental factors, with the goal of informing strategies for safer urban areas. The research explores the influence of both socioeconomic and physical characteristics of the urban layout on crime rates. The paper outlines the theoretical framework of crime mapping, the design and implementation of the GIS (data collection, variable encoding, database structure, normalization, and spatial referencing), and presents early findings on the spatial distribution of crimes, supported by visual examples.