Mapping Software Has Role in ‘The District’

The new TV season is underway, and starring alongside Craig T. Nelson in CBS’ crime drama “The District,” is ArcView GIS.

No, that’s not the new name for the Artist Formerly Known as Prince. It’s a piece of mapping software made by ESRI, the Redlands company that specializes in Geographic Information Systems software. In each episode, Nelson’s character, Washington, D.C. Police Commissioner Jack Mannion, relies on ArcView GIS to reduce crime in the nation’s capital.

Week after week, Mannion will deploy the software to map the locations of murders, armed robberies and guns seized, among other things. The staff of “The District” initially planned to use graphic artists to create crime-oriented maps, but they called on ESRI when they realized they wanted their props to look more technically accurate, said the company’s director of marketing, Linda Hecht. So ESRI dispatched a GIS technician to work full time on the set of “The District.”

“TV audiences are going to see maps that are true and focused on reality,” says Lew Nelson, law enforcement industry manager at ESRI.