GIS 4930: Special Topics; Project 3: Stats Prepare

Throughout the next few weeks, we will be delving deep into the clandestine, the dangerous and ultimately bad world of drugs.  Specifically we will be examining the role of GIS statistical analysis as it applies to aiding law enforcement with determining ideal locations to find methamphetamine labs.  Meth has been around since the early 1920's and have been illegal since the 60's, which drove the illicit trade underground.  Meth labs have been found in every state, but surprisingly only in about half of the country's counties.  Over the next few weeks, we will be analyzing two different counties of West Virginia, Putnam and Kanawha. These counties are credited with 187 meth lab busts from 2004-2008.  Chances are, we all know someone who has been impacted through drugs, or drug use, or at minimum you can see it all too prevalent on the news. The idea behind this lab is to examine the socioeconomic trend information that can aid in determining where meth labs are most likely and be able to give that information to local law enforcement agencies. The end deliverable for this year will be a scientific paper discussing the issue and analysis being done on the study area shown below. 

As stated earlier, the study area is of the Charleston vicinity in West Virginia and is home to 187 meth lab busts.  This information has already been summarily broken down into a meth lab density by census tract shown in the main map provided below.  This essentially means the total number of busts per census tract was divided by the area of the tract to provide us with density values seen in the legend.  This map also provides a basic overview of the subject counties and provides state context as well.