GIS is an important tool for crime analysis as it allows law enforcement agencies to understand crime data from a geographical spatial perspective by visualizing the occurrence of crime and analyzing the spatial patterns of crime. Crime analysis is defined as the qualitative/quantitative study of crimes as well as law enforcement information with relation with socio-demographic and spatial factors to arrest criminals, prevent crimes, reduce disorder, and evaluate organizational procedures. The different kinds of crime analysis includes intelligence analysis, criminal investigative analysis, tactical crime analysis, and strategic crime analysis.
Crime is argued to be a geographical problem due to the fact that it depends on the activities of people, which is operated often at a routine basis. Routine activity theory predicts that residential homes are burglarized during the weekdays in the daytime and commercial properties during the weekend and nighttime hours, due to routine of temporal pattern of vacancy within a certain space. Sociodemographic and socioeconomic characteristics of people are not random, so routine activities are also not random. Criminal pattern theory states where and when the offence will occur. Rationale choice theory suggests that as offenders are influenced by the daily activities and routines of their daily lives, they tend to stay in areas that are familiar to them. These 3 theories are part of the field of environmental criminology.