Free the data for Crime Mapping

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.

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