SpotCrime.com Crime Mapping

SpotCrime Offering High Engagement Crime Maps - For Free!

noreply@blogger.com (Brittany) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 18:26:00 +0000

There are two main categories of crime mapping (or two ends of the scale)

1. Institutional crime mapping - designed for professional analysts with many bells a whistles

2. Public facing crime mapping - designed to get information to public fast.

We at SpotCrime tend to the public facing end of the spectrum. We provide very little analytics - although our city pages do have a basic charts page - http://spotcrime.com/analytics/md/baltimore

What we do focus on is distribution and engagement.

Our distribution in the US is larger than any other crime mapping site on the Internet. We have multiple websites for the public to choose from that are all fast and functional - SpotCrime.com, SpotCrime.info, MyLocalCrime.com, and UCrime.com. With the thought that people register information differently, we’ve created multiple outlets for residents to choose from.

SpotCrime.info, the newest SpotCrime addition

We also provide our maps in more places than just our websites. We deliver over 120k emails a day, that’s over 3.5 million emails sent a month. Each email is tailored to an address and radius specified by the user. And we send an actual crime map with each email - which makes it easier for residents to engage with and forward on the information to friends and family.

We have partnered with over 50 media outlets across the US. These media partners display our local crime maps on their website along with breaking crime news stories to help inform their viewers of crime in their area. In some cities, community watch groups and HOA’s display our maps to help with their neighborhood watch efforts. Other companies, like Trulia - an online residential real estate site, Lifeshield - a home security company, and IDV Solutions - a data software company, integrate SpotCrime on their site to provide crime data to their users to help them make informed decisions. Most recently, we began delivering our maps to Topix.com. With over 7 million visitors a month, our Topix partnership has vastly increased our reach.

We are mobile. Our web pages work so great in a mobile environment that there is almost no need for an app. However, we still offer apps on the iPhone and Android for viewers who prefer an app. We even send crime data via SMS text alerts for users who do not own a smart phone or tablet.

Finally, we can be found on almost any major social media network. On Twitter, we’ve hooked up an RSS feed to tweet real time crime events for individual cities across the US. Our Posterous sites display actual press releases from police departments across the US. You can ‘like’ us on Facebook to learn about major crime stories. Our SpotCrime Blogspot keeps viewers updated on the progress we are making in crime mapping. You can StumpleUpon us and even re-pin us on Pinterest.

With this type of distribution, we’ve estimated 5 to 6 million people engage our data on a monthly basis.

Why push information onto the Internet in every way possible? Because SpotCrime was created by a regular citizen who wanted to know what was happening on his block. Founded and based in Baltimore with arguably one of the highest crime rates in the nation, SpotCrime was designed with the ability and purpose to get information to residents fast and share it fast.

The value of a crime map is not only the information it holds, but the network it engages. Facebook may not have had the best technology when it started out, but it trumped it’s competition because of the sensibility behind connecting with peers, similar to SpotCrime’s ability to reach viewers with crime data.

Finally, because we have a news media model based on advertising, we are incentive to get this information to as many people as fast and as accurate as possible.

911 Call Data v Police Recorded Data

noreply@blogger.com (Brittany) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 18:33:00 +0000

We get this question all of the time from SpotCrime users - what is the different between call data and police recorded ? Here's a brief explanation of the two.

911 Call Data
Departments across the country have different names for 911 call data. It can range from ‘911 call data’ to ‘calls for service’ to ‘CAD data’ and many more. 911 call data includes any data pulled from a department’s CAD (Computer Aided Dispatch) system. Typical CAD companies used by departments include Intergraph, Spillman, SunGard, Tiburon, USA-Software, and New World Systems.

911 call data includes any call into a police department that requires action by an officer. It is the raw, immediate data that represents the first record of an incident. Many police departments - like Dallas, Tulsa, Columbus, San Antonio, Hillsborough County, and Tampa (to name a few) - have started to release their CAD data in an open feed format available to the public.

A benefit of 911 call data is that it is a fast representation of actual police incidents that have been handled by the department. It is real-time crime data. However, because the speed of processing the incident is so quick, the accuracy of the incident may be compromised (i.e. the exact location of a shooting).

Police Recorded Data
Police recorded data is data that is entered into the department’s RMS (Records Management System) at a later time. A lot of companies that create CAD systems also make software for RMS. Some typical RMS used by departments are Niche, SunGard, Spillman, Tiburon, and Enforsys.

The RMS holds police recoded data that covers the entire life span of an incident - from when it was generated to when the case was closed. Police recorded data takes longer to process and release than 911 call data. However, the police recorded data is often much more accurate than 911 data because it is validated and updated throughout the life of an incident.

A lot of police departments use police recorded data to create reports called tactical data. Tactical data is very useful for departments to determine where to allocate their resources and it helps them make better decisions about policing.

Don’t see your city on the map? Ask your department to send SpotCrime their 911 call data or police recorded data. If they send us data, we will map it for free.

Stay aware, stay safe.

Crimes against the Elderly

noreply@blogger.com (Brittany) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 19:04:00 +0000

The US has a rapidly growing elderly population. And, unfortunayley, the number of elderly people being victimized by criminals has grown rapidly as well.

Scams again the elderly are crimes we don't get to map much - they normally show up as theft or assault - but we would like to bring more attention to them.

Most elderly victims are over the age of 75 and depend on other people. The need for personal assistance increases with age. Also with age, the less 'in tune' with the world an older person becomes. A lot of older people are more financially concerned (especially if they are retired), so it would be easier to scam someone into giving away private healthcare information or billing information. This leaves an elderly person very vulnerable and an easy target.

For example, a recent scam in Stafford County, VA included a phone scam where someone pretended to be the person's grandchild. The 'grandchild' would convince the grandparent that they were stranded in a foreign county and needed money. Luckily, no one sent moeny to the phoney grandchild so none of the reported incidents became a crime.

Some other types of phone fraud that elderly fall victim to include phishing, charity fraud, sweepstakes fraud, phony health insurance policies, and home repair scams.

With age comes disease and not so good health. Alzheimer and different forms of dementia may leave a person as a very easy target. The dementia patient may never realize or remember that their in home care taker has been stealing money or items from them. To a criminal, its like taking candy from a baby.

Other ways criminals take advantage of the elderly is through the care, or lack of, that they receive from a caretaker. In Chicago, a daughter-in-law and granddaughter were charged with criminal neglect for an 86 your old woman. The step-daughter and granddaughter essentially left the woman to rot while they spent her money that was meant for her care.

If you are worried about your elderly family or friend being a victim of a crime, always check on them. Talk to them about potential scams and let them know that you are there to help. Need to get more care for your mom or dad? Do your research on the home or caretaker. Make sure to visit them frequently. Be weary of any new friends they may make, its OK to assume sometimes!

Chart of Crime Incidents Added to SpotCrime By Year

noreply@blogger.com (Colin D) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 23:48:00 +0000

SpotCrime has multiple crime maps in the Buffalo, NY area!

noreply@blogger.com (Brittany) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 18:11:00 +0000

SpotCrime has been mapping Buffalo metropolitan area for quite a while now. In addition to a Buffalo SpotCrime map, we also have a Cheektowaga, North Tonawanda and Niagara County maps.

Buffalo is the second most populated city in New York state and is the largest populated upstate city with a population of over 260k people.

Cheektowaga is located east of Buffalo with a population of 94,000

North Tonawanda has 31,570 people

Niagara County, home of Niagara Falls, has 216,470 people...a grand total of 602,040!

SpotCrime receives feeds from the departments to map the data and is very proud to see data transparency in north eastern cities, particularly in New York state, and from departments of different sizes. Ironically, we still have not established a crime data feed with the NYPD - one of the biggest departments in the US.

Check out the Buffalo area SpotCrime maps at http://spotcrime.com/ny Make sure to sign up for your local crime alert at SpotCrime.com. On a mobile device? Don't forget to check a quick view of crime data in your area at MyLocalCrime.com

The Great Baltimore Fire and Open Crime Data

noreply@blogger.com (Colin D) — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 01:21:00 +0000

This may be a stretch, but we’ve been thinking about how the great Baltimore Fire and access to crime data are related.

The Great Baltimore Fire spanned over two days in February of 1904. It took the effort of 1,231 firefighters from 4 different cities to bring the fire under control that destroyed over 1,500 buildings in central Baltimore. At the time, there were no set standards in the fire equipment used by fire departments nation wide. Therefore, the fire lasted for 31 hours because the departments that assisted the Baltimore Fire Department had hose couplings that could not fit Baltimore's hydrants.

Similarly, when a police department uses proprietary data distribution, it prevents others from hooking up and helping. The data is supplied (like the water) but the manner in which the data is displayed (the hose couplings) is different. Proprietary data distribution prevents others from using and publicizing the data, further hindering the message to the public. With less accessibility, less people get reached.

Here at SpotCrime, we are committed to helping put a dent into crime. Our goal is to map as many cities and reach as many residents as we can. But in cities that use proprietary systems or no system, we are unable to help. We’d prefer not to standby and watch things burn, particularly when method of distribution (our hose) seems to be one of the most effective methods in reaching more people.

Recently, a Santa Monica-based think tank, Rand Corp, had to retract a study because the data they accessed was incomplete. Rand had used crime data to draw a conclusion about pot clinics and crime rates in Los Angeles. Currently, public crime data is not fully open in Los Angeles preventing companies like Rand from performing accurate research. The source Rand chose to utilize for the study no longer had access to LAPD crime data. Rand was unaware that the LAPD had chosen to move from one proprietary system to another, and simply assumed the first site mapped crime in both the County and City.

The parallel between the Great Baltimore Fire and the Rand Corp incident shows the importance of standardization and open access. After the Great Baltimore fire was extinguished, standards were created to make US hose couplings similar. A public crime data initiative should be set making Police Departments (not third parties) in charge of supplying crime data to the public, preferably in a spreadsheet format that is easily found on the department’s website. This way, any person or news entity has the ability to map data and distribute it to the public. No one entity should be able to restrict the use or access of public crime data.

At SpotCrime we’d like to hook up our hose to any crime data source available and spread it to as many people as possible - believing that this is the true purpose of public crime mapping - informing as much of the public as possible. We also believe that any sort of artificial restrictions on access could impede safety by limiting the reach of the information. Let’s stop data discrimination and give the information to everyone.

Help us douse crime by making crime data fully public to everyone.

SpotCrime Helps Las Vegas Realtor

noreply@blogger.com (Brittany) — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 23:23:00 +0000

Recently, Mark Fleysher of Jack Conley Realty has started using the SpotCrime map widget on his website.

Mark has found crime data to be an invaluable tool to provide updated information to his clients.

Often, clients ask about safety of various neighborhoods and consider crime a key determinant in selecting a home.

Now, Mark can point them to a map on his site to get a clear picture of crime activity around the homes they are looking to purchase.

Crime Maps Should Not Be Rube Goldberg Machines

noreply@blogger.com (Brittany) — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 15:51:00 +0000

At SpotCrime, we often request data from police departments that have purchased crime mapping systems. Ostensibly, these crime maps displayed on the Internet are intended to distribute crime information to the public, but at this current time, almost every vendor that is contracted to map crime puts restrictions on access. When we inform the police department that there are restrictions on access, about 50% of the time we find out that the department was not aware their vendor had restrictions preventing the press from republishing data. A good majority of the time, we are able to access the data directly from the records system.

The other 50% of departments abdicate responsibility to the vendor as if they are not responsible for the vendor they have contracted with to deliver public information. Forgive the pun, but this is a cop out. If you are contracting with a company to deliver public information to the public, shouldn't you be responsible for the vendor that puts restrictions on what the public can and can't do with the data? And since the rules of access are lengthy, why doesn't any police department take the time to discuss the restrictions with the public when they send out releases about the new crime mapping system?

Recently, the city of Chicago followed many other cities in the US and began releasing crime data openly without restrictions. It turns out that when a city does this, most of the crime mapping companies flock to the data and map it for free.

Any system that displays data in a format that can't easily be downloaded is, in today's world, seemingly hampered intentionally. Similar to a technical product having designed obsolescence, these data delivery products have a designed obfuscation. The level of difficulty of delivering data to the public is relatively minuscule using available technology. SpotCrime is similarly guilty of not providing a spreadsheet to the public, but in our defense we have an RSS feed for each of our maps since we started and we have never contracted with a police department to deliver crime data, hampering others from mapping. We also have more open outlets for our data than any other crime mapping company, including Twitter, Email, SMS, multiple mobile platforms, DirecTV and many media outlets across the country.

We do have a very intimidating terms of use on our websites. It states "Be nice with out data and our website.".

With the available technology and existing record systems, the level of difficulty to deliver crime data open to the public is small, and the cost should not exceed a few thousand dollars (one time charge). Then, the agency gets many crime mapping companies mapping the data for free reaching more of the public than any single source solution. It's time to stop purchasing complex Rube Goldberg Crime Mapping systems that are inaccessible to most of the public. Putting dots on a map is relatively simple and has been done since the 1800's. In most cases, the complexity of classifying, locating and preparing for public consumption has already been handled.

This is a call to set public crime data free without restriction. If the presumption is that most people in our society are good, then the data will be used for good and will help preserve the safety of our communities. The Internet has been around for some time now. It is our hope we've moved beyond historical methods of single source distribution of public data. Let the public have the data without restrictive rules, so we can share and multiply the message the way the Internet works best.

Serial Sexual Assaults in Brooklyn, NY - Mapped on SpotCrime!

noreply@blogger.com (Brittany) — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 19:46:00 +0000

Recently, there have been a string of sexual assaults against women in the Sunset Park/Windsor Terrace/Park Slope neighborhoods of Brooklyn, NY. A total of 11 assaults since March. The most recent occurred on Monday night when a man groped a woman after exiting the subway in Sunset Park. Check out the crime listing we created to give a visual representation of where these assaults have occurred.

To view the full interactive map on SpotCrime, head here

The NYPD does not believe the most recent crime is related to the 10 other sexual assaults. But, since it occurred in the same area as the others, we decided to include it on our map.

Picture from NBC New York coverage

There have been 4 total sketches made from accounts from the victims. Although all drawings are different, you can see some similarities in the race (possibly), hair color and nose of the suspect(s), which is why we think all of the incidents are related. The man has been described as being 20 to 25 years old, about 5'4" with a medium build.

The most recent sketch released. This man is believed to have a mole on the left side of his neck.

No matter what city you live in, whether it's the Big Apple or Small Town, USA, stay aware. Never go anywhere alone, especially at night. Arm yourself with knowledge and make sure you take the correct preventative measures against crime and criminals. Sign up for your local crime alerts or view your local crime map at SpotCrime or MyLocalCrime. Stay safe!

How to Get Free Crime Mapping for your Community

noreply@blogger.com (Brittany) — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 16:16:00 +0000

SpotCrime always maps for free - meaning we don’t charge the police agency (we have no interest in selling any services to your police agency) and we do not charge the public. We have a news model and, like any news organization, use advertising. Our diabolical world domination goal is to get relevant, useful, timely crime information to everyone on the planet.

But, not everyone likes our approach to mapping. We do have a simpler version of our crime map, MyLocalCrime.com, but that still may not be the best solution for everyone. The best thing about the available technology in mapping is that it’s relatively inexpensive to map crime and there are many companies providing crime maps. The problem is that not all departments make public crime data fully and easily accessible to the public.

We’ve noticed that when a city or county makes their data available freely to everyone, without restrictions and in a table format -- similar to DC, San Francisco, Dallas and most recently Chicago -- many professional and news oriented crime mapping companies map the data for free. This gives the public a tremendous choice in how to consume and view crime data. It also gives a break to a city's and police department's pocketbook.

So, wondering the best way to get free crime mapping for your community? Ask your city to make the crime data fully public and it is likely your community will get many outlets for viewing crime information. SpotCrime will be one of them. And, it is likely that a company (or person) may come up with something more interesting to look at than just a crime map. Hopefully they'll come up with a full-proof way to predict and stop crime before it even happens.

Crime Maps are Good but Open Distribution is Better

noreply@blogger.com (Colin D) — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 14:53:00 +0000

Here at SpotCrime, we've been mapping crime for over four years now and have learned a great deal about how crime data is reported from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.    Along the way, we've encountered some steep resistance to getting crime data open to the public. Thankfully, many cities have been bitten by the ‘open data bug’ and have started delivering their public data openly without restrictions. However, there are still some cities whose crime data is still immobilized by restrictions. Those restrictions usually come in a form of Terms of Use limiting what you can and can not do with your public data. Even after four years, it is still unclear to us why crime data intended for the public would come with restrictions.

At SpotCrime, we've come to view crime mapping as a means to an end. With the ultimate goal of getting relevant crime information to the public, increasing awareness, trust in law enforcement, and hopefully increasing the level of safety for each community where we are permitted to report.

Visually, crime maps can tell an interesting story and can potentially show patterns.   Like statistics, they can also be misleading. Any visual representation of data has limitation. Depending on where you view crime data on SpotCrime or MyLocalCrime, you will get a different representation of data.   For our city maps, we typically show 300 crimes.    Any more and the map would be too crowded with icons.

For our front page SpotCrime and MyLocalCrime maps, we will show as much local crime as we can without crowding the map using a proprietary algorithm.   We think both maps are useful, but both tell a different story.   One gives an overall view of a city's crime, and the other a more local view of a specific point.   If you are going to draw inferences from our maps, please take some time to understand the data. And, with anything you view on the Internet, take some time to verify our data with other sources.   While we try to be much less serious than the other professional crime mapping companies, we view this data seriously and we are very serious about improving communities by informing them.

The term ‘context’ is often brought up with crime data. Usually, we hear that the data is not useful if taken out of context, and while we understand the argument, multiple shootings in a certain part of town over a long period of time needs little context.   You don't need an Anthropology PHD to look at our Baltimore maps and understand where the gang violence is happening - just do a crime type search filter for shootings and you’ll see.

To represent each type of crime, we are still the only crime mapping company to use shaped character icons for our mapping. Often criticized as cartoony, we believe using the added dimension of shapes allows the human eye to assimilate more information without having to complicate the field with added layers.

As of this posting, we are still the only crime mapping company to provide SMS alerts, detailed maps in our email alerts and approximate Google Street View for each individual crime.   Because of the competitive nature of crime mapping, we are forced to innovate and provide better and faster methods of delivering this public data.

Unfortunately, our innovation is being stymied in many communities through proprietary restrictions on public data. Recently one of the largest contract crime mapping companies added new restriction to all its viewers. No announcement was made about these new restrictions that now prevents the press from writing down the public data.   And no police department using this system has informed their public of these restrictions.

We believe any type of restriction on public data access is an antiquated pre-Internet approach to distribution of public data. With the cost of technology approaching zero, we believe an optimal approach to distributing public information includes these characteristics: without restriction, timely and in an electronic table.

If you notice that the new crime mapping system has restrictions, please ask your police agency to explain those restrictions and what the benefit to the community is to have those restrictions.

If the data is open, SpotCrime and many other technology companies will map the data for free and find new and innovative ways of getting this information to the public.   It is likely the paid vendor will also map for free. It is time to take full advantage of the openness of the Internet and allow your public data to be free.   Here at SpotCrime, we'd like to play our part and we feel for the most part we've been successful reaching more people with crime data in the US than any other single company.    Right now, our only limitation is access to public data.    Ask your police agency to join the Internet age and be fully open with their data, or ask them to explain line by line the complicated rules of access some of the crime mapping companies have imposed.

SPOTCRIME SURPASSES 300,000 SUBSCRIBERS TO BECOME MOST VISITED ONLINE CRIME MAPPING SITE

noreply@blogger.com (Colin D) — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 00:29:00 +0000

SpotCrime – the most comprehensive online source for crime data – has become the most visited crime mapping website in the U.S., surpassing 300,000 subscribers.

The company currently sends subscribers 3.5 million email alerts monthly. With its media partners and multiple websites, SpotCrime estimates more than 6 million people interact with the crime data the company generates each month.

“The more people are aware of what’s occurring in their communities, the higher the chance that community will be proactive in the fight against crime,” says SpotCrime Founder and President Colin Drane. “Our goal is for SpotCrime to distribute crime data worldwide, decreasing crime rates and increasing peace of mind.”

Through its proprietary model, SpotCrime pulls crime incident data from multiple sources, including state and local police departments and validated news sources, to produce a comprehensive record of local crime information.

Drane estimates that SpotCrime will have 500,000 subscribers by mid-2012.

The company has attracted numerous subscribers through its partnerships with major U.S. media companies, including Gannett, Sinclair, Belo Television, Hearst, Newport Television, Media General, Capitol Broadcasting, and Clarity Media Group, which owns the Washington and San Francisco Examiner newspapers.

SpotCrime has also seen its use skyrocket on DIRECTV, where customers have made SpotCrime’s TV App the second fastest growing application offered by the popular video service next to Facebook. The TV App provides up-to-date details about actual crime incidents that have taken place, as well as crime mapping for specific areas.

“I really believe we are just scratching the surface with respect to the number of ways in which crime data can be used,” says Drane.

A prime example of that is the partnership between SpotCrime and national residential real estate website Trulia which provides prospective home buyers, sellers, and renters with crime data in 50 major metropolitan areas nationwide.

SpotCrime also has launched an iPhone application which allows users to obtain detailed descriptions of the crimes listed and share crime incidents with others via email.

“SpotCrime was founded on the principle that information is power,” says Drane. “As a result, we are committed to constantly finding new and innovative ways to provide timely crime information to the public.”

For more information, visit www.spotcrime.com.

Jacksonville, FL Heat Map

noreply@blogger.com (Brittany) — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 19:02:00 +0000

Thanks to the JSO, we've recently added more data to our SpotCrime Jacksonville map.

Check out the map here http://spotcrime.com/fl/jacksonville

Wondering were the most shootings occur in the city? Check out the SpotCrime heat map. There is more 'heat' where the shootings occur.

SpotCrime Jacksonville Heat Map

Zoomed in and with pushpins showing, you can see exactly where the shootings occur.

SpotCrime Jacksonville Heat map with pushpins

Looks like the center of the city is a place where a lot of shootings occur (assuming that more people live in the center of the city, this is normal) and the south and north sides look less violent. Other areas that you should be aware of are circled below -- south west of the center around Normandy Blvd, south east of the city around Spring Park and east of the city between the Arlington Expressway and Atlantic Blvd.

Other high shooting rate areas

Sign up for you local crime alerts at SpotCrime or MyLocalCrime. Get involved with your community and neighborhood watch groups. Stay aware and stay safe!

SpotCrime Reaches Over 300,000 Subscribers!

noreply@blogger.com (Brittany) — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 15:44:00 +0000

As of this morning, SpotCrime has reached over 300, 000 subscribers! On average, we send 3.5 million crime alerts monthly!

Since we've launched, we've realized that the greatest value of mapping crime is the network of people who view and interact with the data. With our media partners, and multiple websites, we estimate over 6 million people interact with our data monthly.

If no one views a crime map, what's it's worth?

The more people aware of what's occurring in their community, the higher chance the community is proactive in the fight against crime. Our ultimate goal is that SpotCrime effectively distributes crime data across the world, decreasing the crime rate and increasing a peace of mind.

Are you signed up for your local SpotCrime alert yet? Each email alert is made custom for each subscriber. When you sign up for an alert, you can put in your address and a radius of choice. So, unless there are subscribers with the same address and the same radius, no two alerts are alike!

Head to SpotCrime or MyLocalCrime to sign up for your local crime alert. Stay aware, stay safe!

Angelina County, TX - We've got a map for that!

noreply@blogger.com (Brittany) — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 17:05:00 +0000

SpotCrime is now mapping Angelina County, TX!

Angelina County is located just north east of Houston, also known as 'Deep East Texas' where currently, due to the dry weather, there have been numerous wildfires engulfing the area. East Texas is considered the most western part of the Deep South and is more connected to the lower south states than the rest of Texas.

Angelina County has a population of over 80k and it's county seat is Lufkin, TX. SpotCrime maps crime data with the help of the Angelina County Sheriff's Department, which is also located in Lufkin.

The Sheriff's department's mission is to 'provide a safe and secure community to the citizens of Angelina County'. With the new SpotCrime maps and alerts, residents can be more informed and better prepared about the crime that occurs in their area. We believe that the Angelina County Sheriff's Department is taking a great step toward transparency and innovation by sending their data to SpotCrime for distribution to the public.

Live in Angelina County? Make sure to thank the Sheriff's department for providing this important information to residents!

Interested in finding out what crime occurs in your Angelina County area? Head to SpotCrime or MyLocalCrime. Make sure to sign up for your local crime alerts, too! Stay aware, stay safe!

How Can a Police Agency Get Crime Data on SpotCrime?

noreply@blogger.com (Brittany) — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 17:54:00 +0000

Wondering how to get your police agency's crime data on SpotCrime? Well, if you have a computer, you can have a crime map. No department is too small (or too big) for us to get on the map!
SpotCrime offers free mapping and public distribution systems at no cost to police departments. We have a news model with advertising which means we are never looking to upsell our products at a later date.

The crime maps include useful features like the hourly updates to the map, date range search, crime type search, keyword search, a 'quick view' of crime in your area (via MyLocalCrime) and, of course, free crime alerts for residents. The crime alerts can be sent by email and/or SMS.

Here are a few simple steps to see your city on SpotCrime.
First, send us an email to feedback@spotcrime.com . Let us know you'd like us to make a crime map for your area. Make sure to provide your contact information and the police agency you are with. We should contact you shortly after we receive the email.

Then, collect your crime data and import it into a spreadsheet. A spreadsheet is the best format to send data. Check out a sample spreadsheet here http://bit.ly/ontsgV All you have to do is replace the sample data with your department's data and send over. Notice the last couple of columns are optional.
Next, send the completed spreadsheet over to us. We prefer FTP (file transfer protocol) because it helps with automation. But, if your department is not familiar with FTP, email will work too! Unfortunately, we no longer accept carrier pigeon as a method of receiving data, nor anything written on papyrus. Also, please avoid sending data via smoke signals, it's bad for the environment. Make sure to let us know how often you will be sending over data (hourly or daily). This way, we can make sure we have the data mapped within hours.

Finally, inform your residents of their new free and informative crime map and alerts! If you'd like, ask us for a brochure to send out to your community and neighborhood watch groups as an introduction. Also, a good way to spread the word is by contacting your local news outlet and have them do the work for you.

Have questions? Contact us at feedback@spotcrime.com. We'd love to hear from you and get your crime map up and running today.

Why Do We Map Crime?

noreply@blogger.com (Colin D) — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 18:47:00 +0000

The original title of this blog post was- If A Crime is Mapped and No One Sees It- What's the Point?

Roughly four years ago, I started SpotCrime in Baltimore as a hobby. Baltimore is a particularly violent city, and as a transplant from Philadelphia, I wanted to know where the shootings were happening that I was hearing about everyday. I also was personally enamored by the idea of crowd sourcing and envisioned the public interacting with crime data and helping law enforcement reduce crime.

To answer the question - Why do We Map Crime? SpotCrime maps crime to identify it's approximate location and deliver that information to anyone interested in crime information for the general area.

Put simply, we map crime so we can deliver relevant information to those interested in being informed about crime.

Today we send out over 100,000 crime alert emails a day and by next month will have 300,000 subscribers.   We are still amateurs in the crime mapping space defined in terms of not receiving any outside funding and we do not bill any public agency for our services. Our model is like any local newspaper, we have advertising around the information we provide.   We are, however, the most visited crime mapping website in the US, and we distribute crime data through more channels than anyone else- including mobile apps, DirecTV, and many news outlets including the New York Times Regional Papers. Additionally, we distribute crime information through SMS, RSS and Twitter.

Historically, crime data was released to the public through the local newspaper.   This model was efficient because it was the best way to reach the most people in an area, and there was very few other options. (pre television)

As the internet has taken hold, public crime mapping has taken many forms as well as the distribution of crime data. The heavy lifting is done by the police agency - responding to the call, classifying the event and recording the crime. Once recorded, there are many methods of releasing the information to the public. But the complicated work of accuracy is handled well before release. Mistakes can happen anywhere through the chain, but great pains are taken to insure the accuracy of the data collected.

Unfortunately, data distribution has not caught up to the technology available. Much of what we consume on the internet is free, and with a purchasing system that historically is used to budgeting for technology, free is sometimes difficult to grasp.

While many cities are releasing their data to the public, others are still choosing an older model of ‘silo-ing’ the data with one outlet. What this means is often the outlet is a vendor to the police department, but because of the nature of the internet, the vendor is now also the selected news source.

Ultimately, agencies (often inadvertently) ordain a specific news vendor to be the sole reporter of timely crime data (the silo). In some instances, that news entity also happens to be a vendor to the police department. For us, a similar comparison would be having a city give preferential access to timely information to CNN over Fox.

Any time only one entity is given sole access to timely crime data, it is likely that the public is harmed by limited distribution. In particular, when many companies are mapping crime data for free, a more optimal solution would be to release the data to the public and let all the companies map crime.   This is happening in Dallas, San Francisco, and Philadelphia.   If those cities are not paying for multiple companies to map crime, why is any city paying for crime mapping?

If public awareness and access is truly the reason for public crime mapping, then why doesn't every agency increase the distribution multiplier by allowing multiple companies map and distribute the crime data? Monopoly control of crime data increases costs and stifles innovation - that's the inherent nature of a monopoly.

For SpotCrime, our sole economic model is to increase distribution of crime information. Because we do not draw revenue from police agencies, state or Federal funding, we are incentivized to reach the public. We may be biased, but we believe that reaching the public should be the primary metric to judge the effectiveness of public crime mapping.

How To Create A Crime Map Using SpotCrime's Crimelist System

noreply@blogger.com (Colin D) — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 20:49:00 +0000

For anyone looking to create a crime map with a few specific crime events on SpotCrime, you can use our Crimelist System to generate a url for only those crimes you want to show.

Here's an example:

http://spotcrime.com/crimelist/13407744,13457161,13457142,13486131,13485485,13529022

Notice the 8 digit numbers separated by commas.

Each crime in SpotCrime has a eight digit number in the url. For this crime:

http://spotcrime.com/crime/22599014-07b31af832243a16f246f05f92f86839

The identifier is 22599014.

And for this crime:

http://spotcrime.com/crime/22586072-903886ff6c2b9991925df686aa3c3724

The identifier is 22586072

To combine these two crimes, just add them to the url http://spotcrime.com/crimelist/

Here's the result:

http://spotcrime.com/crimelist/22599014, 22586072

Here's a crime list of shootings in Baltimore this past Saturday:

http://www.spotcrime.com/crimelist/22554834,22550951,22550933

Service Interruption- Internet Gremlins Attack SpotCrime

noreply@blogger.com (Colin D) — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 14:35:00 +0000

Dear SpotCrime Subscriber,

Early last week, we encountered two attacks to our servers. The result of these attacks was an interruption of retrieving crime data for certain parts of the country and our regular crime details pages were shut down.

As backup for events like these, we run two additional crime mapping websites SpotCrime.info and MyLocalCrime.com. Both continued to run during the attack.

We are actively working on a solution, and should be fully operational today.

If you experienced a broken url link over the weekend, those links should be working now.

Over the last four years, SpotCrime has become one of the largest and most visited crime mapping websites on the Internet.   From time to time we are going to experience growing pains from the amount of visitors and the occasional attempt to shut us down.

We currently serve over 6 million people monthly through our website, mobile apps, partners, and crime alerts.   Each month we send over 3 million crime alerts. More people visit us than any other crime mapping site in the US. We now have over 21 m. crimes mapped on SpotCrime.

SpotCrime was built on a news model. Just like your local paper, we have advertising. And we have never billed any public agency for our services.

Please help keep your crime data free and unrestricted by thanking your local police departments for making crime data available to us. It is our belief that no company or news agency should get preferential access to crime data- not even us.   Fully open data increases the amount of people receiving the data and hopefully reducing crime through knowledge. Restricted data is harmful and discriminatory.

As part of our pledge to open data, we are developing open distribution of our data in areas where we are the sole mapping company.

We treasure your feedback. Please send us a line at feedback@spotcrime.com.    And please give us a “Like’ on Facebook. http://www.facebook.com/crimemap

Thanks for your patience.

Sincerely,

Colin Drane
Founder
SpotCrime.com
MyLocalCrime.com
UCrime.com
(619) 663-7768

SpotCrime Signups - Covering the US

noreply@blogger.com (Brittany) — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 14:49:00 +0000

Interested in learning where people are signing up for SpotCrime? Check out the map below. It shows where signups occurred yesterday.

As you can see, we are serving folks from all over the US.

Don't see your city on SpotCrime? Contact your local police department and let them know about us. We will map crime and send alerts for free!

The Flash Mob Epidemic

noreply@blogger.com (Brittany) — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 17:53:00 +0000

Recently, there has been an increase in a violent trend with teenagers in rural areas - Flash Robs.

Flash Robs are similar to Flash Mobs, except they are harmful and illegal. In a typical Flash Rob, a group of teenagers enter a retail store and rob, assault and steal items from unsuspecting victims. The less violent incidents involve stealing items from convenient stores. The more harmful cases involve robberies and assaults against individuals.

Below is a SpotCrime crime list of some recent Flash Robs that have made recent headlines. Included are the flash robs in Philadelphia and DC. Also included is the Flash Mob who robbed and beat victims in Milwaukee and Cleveland on the Fourth of July weekend.

In Philadelphia, they have installed a curfew for teenagers to try to control the mobs. Cleveland is working on something similar. Is this a trend that you think will grow in the months to come or a simple fad that will fade away? What actions do you think would help prevent or stop a flash mob robbery?

SpotCrime is Mapping Sunnyvale, CA

noreply@blogger.com (Brittany) — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 20:37:00 +0000

Live, work or play in Sunnyvale, CA? Check out the SpotCrime map to see what crime occurs in your area!

Sunnyvale is located in Santa Clara County in the San Francisco Bay area, also known as Silicon Valley. The population is about 140k. The city is bordered by San Jose, Mountain View, Los Altos and Cupertino.

Tech companies, including Yahoo!, Ariba, Nokia (North American Headquarters) and Palm, Inc are headquartered in Sunnyvale. Do not fear-there are no vampires in this town, however if you travel to fictional Sunnydale, CA (from Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV show) I'm sure you'll find plenty of blood suckers there.

MyLocalCrime map of Sunnyvale, CA

Interestingly, Sunnyvale is one of the few US cities to have a Department of Public Safety, which means all personnel are trained firefighters, police officers and EMTs! SpotCrime collects crime data from the Sunnyvale Dept of Public Safety to compile the map.

Want to read about more news in your Sunnyvale area? Head to the San Francisco Examiner, stop by the SFExaminer SpotCrime page while your there to check out more maps in the San Fran area. Make sure to head to SpotCrime or MyLocalCrime to sign up for your free local crime alerts. Stay aware, stay safe!

Licking County, OH-Mapped!

noreply@blogger.com (Brittany) — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 21:50:00 +0000

SpotCrime is now mapping Licking County, OH!

SpotCrime map of Licking County, OH

Licking County is located north east of Columbus and has a population of about 145k! The county seat is Newark (where majority of the arrests are on the map) and is named for the salt licks located across the county.

Feel free to use to the map to learn about what crime happens in your Licking County area. For example, to the eastern part of the county, there is a group of burglaries.

Search completed using the SpotCrime incident search option.

With their proximity to each other compared to other burglaries in the area, they appear to at least coincide if not be related. Four of the five burglaries happened within a week of each other. Seeing trends like these on a map near your home should encourage you to take your own preventative measures and steps against becoming a victim. Check out this link or this post on our SpotCrime blog for more information on how to protect yourself from a burglar.

SpotCrime works with the Licking County Sheriff's Office to collect, map and send email alerts to residents of the county. Interested in learning about what happens in your Licking County area? Check out SpotCrime or MyLocalCrime. Don't forget to sign up for your local crime alerts!

Stay aware, stay safe!

State College, PA - Banners Reported Stolen from Penn State Natatorium; Public's Help Sought

noreply@blogger.com (Colin D) — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 16:28:00 +0000

State College, PA - Banners Reported Stolen from Penn State Natatorium; Public's Help Sought

SpotCrime Launches on Washington Examiner!

noreply@blogger.com (Brittany) — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 16:04:00 +0000

SpotCrime maps have launched on the Washington Examiner website, a daily newspaper in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. The Examiner covers world, national, and local news and sports.

You can find the SpotCrime maps on the Crime section of the Washington Examiner website. There, you will find over ten maps for DC areas, including D.C. itself, Alexandria (VA), Prince George's County (MD), Montgomery County (MD) and Fairfax County (VA).

Check out the crime section of the Washington Examiner to find out what local crime occurs in the Washington area. Recently, in PG County, a firefighter has plead guilty to his part in the PG bribery scheme involving former executive Jack Johnson and his wife, Councilwoman Leslie Johnson.

Don't see your DC area on the Examiner? Don't see your city mapped on SpotCrime? Let us know and make sure to contact your local police department and let them know about SpotCrime. If the department sends us their crime data, we will map it -- for free.

Don't forget to sign up for your local crime alerts at SpotCrime or MyLocalCrime!