Why Do We Map Crime?
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.
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.
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