Exclusive Crime Data Feeds to One Organization is Not Open Data

This post is a response to LA Times article by Ben Welsh regarding the Torrance Crime Map.
 
While I think the LA Times brings up important issues regarding what should be released in terms of crime data particularly rape offenses, I think it is also important to discuss that having the dominant newspaper in a city get an exclusive feed to crime data is not a long term positive for the public.  In LA for example, you have two players with exclusive data access to crime - The LA Times and the crime mapping vendor being paid by the city.  Both entities have economic incentives to keep their exclusive access to the detriment of the public.

While there should be no expectation that either entity should not pursue their economic goals, it should be incumbent on the city and the police department to have policies in place that don't allow monopoly access to one or a few entities.   Allowing one or a few entities have monopoly control over timely public crime data allows those entities to extract monopoly rent on public data.   

Transparency is not a crime map.  Open access to the data without restrictions (typically by an intermediary) is transparency.  In some cities in the US, you have an intermediary putting restrictions on access that seem purely motivated by the economics of having exclusive access.  

The incremental cost of any police agency to publish a fully public spreadsheet of crime data is minuscule.  With a fully public data feed the public can then chose where they get their crime data - from the source or from an interesting representation of the data.   I happen to think we have an interesting approach, but our approach is not to monopolize the data.  

While I have chided Mr. Welsh and the LA Times for encouraging exclusivity, the ultimate responsibility lies with the city leaders and the police department.  I encourage every city and agency to open your crime data.  We'll map it for free, but there's a much higher probability that someone more intelligent than us does something more interesting and positive with the data.  The current limitation is the antiquated approach to releasing the data.   It is an approach that has no place in today's world of inexpensive technology and connectedness.

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