SpotCrime - The Public's Crime Map

Shootings in Austin Texas. Using the available data in SpotCrime , we created the above shooting map for Austin. Date range used was January to June 2008.

The above shooting map was created with SpotCrime using a date range from January to June 2008.

Map created using SpotCrime and a date range of January to June 2008.

This map shows shootings from available sources in Houston over a time period of January to June 2008.

Note: Limited available data. This was created on SpotCrime using a date range of January to June 2008.

Note: shooting data availability is limited in New Orleans. With what SpotCrime has been able to access, we created this shootings map of New Orleans using a Jan to June 2008 date range.

Using data available to SpotCrime, we created the above Los Angeles shootings map. Date range used was January to June 2008.

With the limited data available, we created the following shooting map of Las Vegas for 2008 so far.

This shootings map of Philadelphia was created using a date range of January to June 2008 on SpotCrime.com .

This map was compiled by selecting shootings on the SpotCrime Washington DC map. A date range of January to June 2008 was selected.

Similar to the shooting maps below. This map of Oakland, CA shows the shooting data SpotCrime has been able to collect for Oakland.

Most of these mapped shootings are from news reports. To get to this map, select New York on SpotCrime . Select a date range from January 1, 2008 to June 23rd. Deselect all other crimes other than shooting and hit refresh map.

The following is shooting data SpotCrime has been able to collect for 2008.

The above map shows the shootings in San Francisco that SpotCrime has been able to identify in 2008. Most of these are from news reported sources.

The above picture is a map of the shootings SpotCrime has for Miami. We used a date range of January through June 2008.

The following is an example of a shootings query on the SpotCrime map for 2008.

SpotCrime is keeping a list of suggested crime prevention tips. www.spotcrime.com/crimepreventiontips

Assaults Thefts Robberies Shootings The above maps were created by selecting a date range of Jan 1 to June 23, 2008. Please note that there is a limitation of how many icons are shown on a map, therefore not all crimes can be shown.

This is a map of four recent reported shootings in and around Dallas.

Shooting in Hartford County on June 14 is not shown on this map. To get this map on SpotCrime .com, just select the date range, deselect all crimes other than shooting and hit "Refresh Map".

Above is a visual representation of the shootings in Philadelphia from SpotCrime. I picked a range of June 14th to June 18th.

The drive by shootings from this morning have been mapped on Kansas City Crime Map. http://spotcrime.com/mo/kansas%20city

Here's a quick snapshot of recent shootings in Chicago . I used a date range from June 1 to June 16.

Pulling most of our information from the Baltimore Sun, we've mapped 6 shootings in and around Baltimore in the last two days. Link to the Baltimore Crime Map. http://spotcrime.com/md/baltimore

http://spotcrime.com/uk/london We've added more crimes to our London crime map. You'll notice that the crimes listed are occurring all over the UK because of the limited availability of information.

Tyler Cowen ( Marginal Revolution ) mentions a paper linking welfare payment cycles to crimes like burglary, theft and robbery. Link to the paper here . And.... The Atlantic Monthly has a interesting article on crime in Memphis. Through an overlay of a crime map, the article states there is a link between crime and where Section 8 vouchers are being used. Link here.

On the SpotCrime.com start page, page down to the bottom and you'll see three links. For the Google Earth, click on the link and download the zip file to you pc. After expanding the file and storing the doc.kml file, click on the Add tab and then Network Link tab. Select the file, and you should have SpotCrime in you Places section. For FaceBook, the application will automatically load after clicking the link. If SpotCrime covers the address you've listed in FaceBook, you'll begin to see details of crimes around that area. Finally, we also have a Google Maplet. With the maplet you can add crime data to your regular Google Maps. Looking for a restaurant to go to, use our crime data to help you decide.

We've created a test London map. Data is very difficult to get in the UK right now, but with all the talk of crime mapping in the UK, we'd thought we would give it a go. http://spotcrime.com/uk/london

In the few months that we've been mapping crime at SpotCrime.com, we've encountered many approaches to how data is released by police departments to its citizens. We recently made an offer to the State of Maryland to map crime for free for all the police departments. Our contention is that the PD should use their funds to make their data publicly available and not exclusive to any one company. Washington DC, Dallas and Oakland are examples of this model. Making the data publicly available gives every organization, including every news source, the ability to map the crime data. From a taxpayer point of view, mapping the data becomes a competitive process rather than a monopoly process. Once a monopoly structure is established, the chances of the fee structure raising in subsequent years increases substantially. Our approach keeps the process competitive and fair to the taxpayer.

We recently started to pull most of our data directly from the Chicago Police crime incident website. ( link ) On average we are adding 1,000 crime incidents a day. Direct link to our Chicago map. http://spotcrime.com/il/chicago

Action 3 news in Omaha gives SpotCrime some air time: http://www.action3news.com/Global/story.asp?S=8414908&nav=menu550_2

Thanks to a mention in TechCrunch , the WashingtonPost picked the story up the next day. Recently we received a link from the BBC Radio 4, and coverage by a Austin, TX news station ( KXAN.com ). Here's the YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v =b8JNlKz3Xr0