The Adoption of Computerized Crime Mapping by Municipal Police Departments in New Jersey

Abstract

A mail survey of 347 municipal police departments in New Jersey was conducted to determine the number of departments currently doing computerized crime mapping, as well as how long they had used the innovation and, if they were not currently mapping, whether they had plans to start in the future. The overall rate of adoption, as of the end of 2002, was 13.8 per cent. Department size was strongly associated with mapping use—agencies with 100 or more sworn full-time officers were six times more likely to have adopted crime mapping than agencies with fewer than ten officers. Despite this finding, there was no evidence of hierarchical diffusion. Large departments had not typically adopted the innovation earlier than had small departments. The article concludes with a discussion of the barriers facing crime mapping adoption by small departments.