Crime Maps are Good but Open Distribution is Better
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.
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.
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