All:

The Mapping & Analysis for Public Safety Program
announces it's Call
for Papers for the Ninth Crime Mapping Research
Conference in Pittsburgh,
PA at the Omni William Penn Hotel, March 28 to 31,
2007. The deadline
for submission is Friday, September 29th. Please note
that in order to
automate our systems this year the paper submission
form uses fillable
forms from Adobe Acrobat 6.0 Professional or greater.
This is not the
same are Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you do not have
access to Adobe
Acrobat 6.0 Professional you can download the MS
Wordversion instead. The
call for papers can be found on our web site at:

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/maps/.

The theme of this conference will be Spatial
Approaches to
Understanding Crime & Demographics. The use of
Geographic Information Systems
(GIS) and spatial data analysis techniques have become
prominent tools for
analyzing criminal behavior and the impacts of the
criminal justice
system on society. Classical and spatial statistics
have been merged to
form more comprehensive approaches in understanding
social problems
from research and practical standpoints. These
methods allow for the
measurement of proximity effects on places by
neighboring areas that lead
to a multi-dimensional and less static understanding
of factors that
contribute to or repel crime across space.

The 9th Crime Mapping Research Conference will be
about demonstrating
the use and development of methodologies for
practitioners and
researchers. The MAPS Program is anticipating the
selection of key accepted
presentations for further development of an electronic
monograph on GIS,
Spatial Data Analysis and the Study of Crime in the
following year. Its
purpose will be to demonstrate the fusing of classical
and spatial
analysis techniques to enhance policy decisions.
Methods should not be
limited to the use of classical and spatial statistics
but also
demonstrate the unique capabilities of GIS in
preparing, categorizing and
visualization data for analysis.

The conference represents a range of issues from
technical solutions to
research methods to applied practices to policy
decisions that impact
society. These are not confined to just the social
sciences, agencies
or organizations that have the terms "crime"
"criminal" or "justice" in
them. The MAPS Program, therefore, hopes to expand
the conference from
its traditional audience and is encouraging papers to
be submitted from
disciplines and agencies that incorporate the spatial
perspectives of,
but not limited to inequality, residential stability,
unemployment,
access to resources, economic opportunities, housing
availability,
migration, segregation, and neighborhood effects as
they relate to crime. The
study of crime is an interdisciplinary event that
takes into
account many aspects of from the study of the
aforementioned topics.
Thus, it is important to see research and applications
from these areas.

The Crime Mapping Research Conference is NOT about
presenting just the
mapping of where crime is. This conference is about
the study of
society and its relationship with the elements that
contribute to crime and
the implementation of criminal justice on society.

Ronald E. Wilson
Program Manager

Mapping & Analysis for Public Safety Program and Data
Resources
@ the National Institute of Justice
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/maps/

810 7th Street, NW
Room 7201
Washington, DC 20531

=========================================================
J. T. Johnson
Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA
www.analyticjournalism.com
505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h)
http://www.jtjohnson.com tom@...

"You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that makes the
existing model obsolete."
-- Buckminster Fuller
==========================================================