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Crime mapping is increasingly becoming an important tool for law enforcement agencies. Police executives need up-to-date information to redefine their organizational goals and objectives, to define priorities, to design and implement solutions and to assess the strategic impact of their departments’ efforts to control crime. Street level problem solvers need routine access to information to scan for problems, analyze them and implement and assess community or problem based policing efforts. Community groups seek information about crime and the quality of life in their neighborhoods. Increasingly, police agencies are relying upon computer crime mapping to identify and distribute information required by the community, police executives and patrol officers to achieve a successful community policing partnership. Indeed, information technology is a critical ingredient for successful implementation of community and problem-oriented policing.

The United States Attorney's Office has created an initiative that assists federal, state and local law enforcement agencies develop and maintain a crime-mapping program in their communities. The results of these implementations are then shared with one another in a coordinated effort to advance the technology of all law enforcement personnel involved in crime analysis.

The following is an example of crime mapping as it relates to discovering high-incidence zones in a particular community

2004 Northwest Indiana Homicide Crime Map