Analyst Talk - Research Remix - Spatial Insights for Officer Safety

Episode: 00293 Released on November 17, 2025 Description: In the fifth installment of Research Remix, Jason Elder and Jamie Roush unpack a 2014 study by Joel Kaplan, Philip Marotta, Eric Piza, and Leslie Kennedy examining whether the physical landscape contributes to felonious assaults and batteries against police officers. Using Chicago Police Department data, the researchers identified how risky facilities such as foreclosures, problem buildings, bars, schools, liquor stores, gang territories, and apartment complexes combine with environmental features like alleyways, poor lighting, and crowd density to elevate officer danger. Jamie explains why these spatial elements matter, how analysts can integrate non-traditional spatial data into proactive officer-safety work, and how dispatchers and CAD systems can benefit from enhanced risk-flagging. The conversation also highlights opportunities for analysts to expand their GIS layers, develop yearly governance on spatial data sources, and build prioritization models that identify the highest-risk locations and times of day. This episode is a practical roadmap for analysts aiming to support officer safety through environmental awareness, spatial modeling, and data-driven risk mitigation.
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Get to know more about Jamie, Joel, and Eric by listening to their previous episodes:
https://www.leapodcasts.com/e/atwje-jamie-roush-the-aha-moment-analyst/
Dr. Joel Caplan:  https://www.leapodcasts.com/e/acia-risk-terrain-modelling-dr-joel-caplan-teaches-us-everything-we-need-to-know/
Dr. Eric Piza:  https://www.leapodcasts.com/e/atwje-eric-piza-the-researcher-at-heart-analyst/
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Related Links:
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1193&context=jj_pubs
https://www.cpted.net/
https://popcenter.asu.edu/content/understanding-risky-facilities
https://www.simplypsychology.org/routine-activities-theory.html
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Contact:  jamielroush@gmail.com,  https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamie-roush-5b399967/
epjets@stockton.edu
Transcript: https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/x292indjf8a3t6mm/RR04_transcript.pdf 
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