Spatiotemporal Analysis of Crimes, A Case Study of Mardan City

Dr. M. Jamal Nasir, Pakhtunyar & Shakeel Mahmood

Abstract
This paper is aimed to study the crime with special reference to its spatial and
temporal distribution. It also tries to analyze and study the effect of weather on
the prevalence of crimes in Mardan city. Studying the crimes spatially and
temporally helps understanding how crimes are distributed through space, and
hence can help in combating them. The Geographical Information System
(GIS) crime analyst is an important tool for dealing with spatial and temporal
analysis and thus fighting crime. The computers have considerably increased
the role of computer-aided mapping. The accessibility of easy to use GIS
encourages its use in spatial analysis of crimes. For present study the data was
collected about homicide and aggressive assaults from all the three police
stations covering Mardan city. The collected data was analyzed under different
scenarios. The temporal based analysis of data reveals that almost 50 % crimes
reported in 2009, took place from May- September (summer) compared to
32% in winter (October to February). The spatial analysis reveals 05 hotspots.
Skindary area was identified as the most crucial hotspot where within a 05 km
radius, 11 crimes were committed in 2009 followed by Kalpani bridge area
from where a total of 10 crimes of aggressive nature were reported. Similarly
police station wise the city police station accounts for 47% of the aggressive
crimes committed in 2009.

Keywords: Spatiotemporal, Analysis, Crime, Mardan City