Utah Drug Free Zone Penalty Enhancement Zone Analysis:

AGRC was asked to present a visual representation of 1000 foot buffers for the Penalty Enhancement Zones, as currently defined by the criminal code. These areas are commonly called Drug Free Zones.

Four cities were chosen: Randolph, Richfield, Murray, and St George to show how the zones impacted different types of municipalities.

Randolph: Rich County, population 500 *  [analysis map]
Richfield: Sevier County, population 6,900*  [analysis map]
Murray: Salt Lake County, population 34,000*   [analysis map]
St. George: Washington County, population 49,700*  [analysis map]
   * population numbers are from the 2000 census

Data was collected from State Division of Emergency Services, Murray City Corporation, City of St George, Washington County School District, and the State Geographic Information Database.

Data was mostly points representing schools, churches, business, etc. Some areas were in the data that showed parks boundaries and larger commercial buildings.  

NAIP imagery ( National Agricultural Imagery Program, natural color 1-meter resolution for 2004 ) and UAO (Urban Area Ortho-Imagery, 1-foot color from 2003 for Murray ) were use to collect areas not represented in any database.  This included School yards, some parks and sports complexes and public parking areas and structures.

ESRI software that we use enables us to create a defined (1000 feet) buffer zone around the features we are portraying.
 
We symbolized these buffer zones into three different color groups to represent activities that a young person might be involved in. Schools and churches were grouped together; recreation and commercial areas were the second and third groups.

A proposal now under consideration is to eliminate the some features, Shopping malls, Theaters and Movie houses and Public Parking, and to add Libraries and decrease the buffer to 500 feet. Another related proposal is considering whether to use similar zones to restrict residential locations for registered sex offenders [St. George example].