Crime Maps Should Not Be Rube Goldberg Machines
At SpotCrime, we often request data from police departments that have purchased crime mapping systems. Ostensibly, these crime maps displayed on the Internet are intended to distribute crime information to the public, but at this current time, almost every vendor that is contracted to map crime puts restrictions on access. When we inform the police department that there are restrictions on access, about 50% of the time we find out that the department was not aware their vendor had restrictions preventing the press from republishing data. A good majority of the time, we are able to access the data directly from the records system.
The other 50% of departments abdicate responsibility to the vendor as if they are not responsible for the vendor they have contracted with to deliver public information. Forgive the pun, but this is a cop out. If you are contracting with a company to deliver public information to the public, shouldn't you be responsible for the vendor that puts restrictions on what the public can and can't do with the data? And since the rules of access are lengthy, why doesn't any police department take the time to discuss the restrictions with the public when they send out releases about the new crime mapping system?
Recently, the city of Chicago followed many other cities in the US and began releasing crime data openly without restrictions. It turns out that when a city does this, most of the crime mapping companies flock to the data and map it for free.
Any system that displays data in a format that can't easily be downloaded is, in today's world, seemingly hampered intentionally. Similar to a technical product having designed obsolescence, these data delivery products have a designed obfuscation. The level of difficulty of delivering data to the public is relatively minuscule using available technology. SpotCrime is similarly guilty of not providing a spreadsheet to the public, but in our defense we have an RSS feed for each of our maps since we started and we have never contracted with a police department to deliver crime data, hampering others from mapping. We also have more open outlets for our data than any other crime mapping company, including Twitter, Email, SMS, multiple mobile platforms, DirecTV and many media outlets across the country.
We do have a very intimidating terms of use on our websites. It states "Be nice with out data and our website.".
With the available technology and existing record systems, the level of difficulty to deliver crime data open to the public is small, and the cost should not exceed a few thousand dollars (one time charge). Then, the agency gets many crime mapping companies mapping the data for free reaching more of the public than any single source solution. It's time to stop purchasing complex Rube Goldberg Crime Mapping systems that are inaccessible to most of the public. Putting dots on a map is relatively simple and has been done since the 1800's. In most cases, the complexity of classifying, locating and preparing for public consumption has already been handled.
This is a call to set public crime data free without restriction. If the presumption is that most people in our society are good, then the data will be used for good and will help preserve the safety of our communities. The Internet has been around for some time now. It is our hope we've moved beyond historical methods of single source distribution of public data. Let the public have the data without restrictive rules, so we can share and multiply the message the way the Internet works best.
Recently, the city of Chicago followed many other cities in the US and began releasing crime data openly without restrictions. It turns out that when a city does this, most of the crime mapping companies flock to the data and map it for free.
Any system that displays data in a format that can't easily be downloaded is, in today's world, seemingly hampered intentionally. Similar to a technical product having designed obsolescence, these data delivery products have a designed obfuscation. The level of difficulty of delivering data to the public is relatively minuscule using available technology. SpotCrime is similarly guilty of not providing a spreadsheet to the public, but in our defense we have an RSS feed for each of our maps since we started and we have never contracted with a police department to deliver crime data, hampering others from mapping. We also have more open outlets for our data than any other crime mapping company, including Twitter, Email, SMS, multiple mobile platforms, DirecTV and many media outlets across the country.
We do have a very intimidating terms of use on our websites. It states "Be nice with out data and our website.".
With the available technology and existing record systems, the level of difficulty to deliver crime data open to the public is small, and the cost should not exceed a few thousand dollars (one time charge). Then, the agency gets many crime mapping companies mapping the data for free reaching more of the public than any single source solution. It's time to stop purchasing complex Rube Goldberg Crime Mapping systems that are inaccessible to most of the public. Putting dots on a map is relatively simple and has been done since the 1800's. In most cases, the complexity of classifying, locating and preparing for public consumption has already been handled.
This is a call to set public crime data free without restriction. If the presumption is that most people in our society are good, then the data will be used for good and will help preserve the safety of our communities. The Internet has been around for some time now. It is our hope we've moved beyond historical methods of single source distribution of public data. Let the public have the data without restrictive rules, so we can share and multiply the message the way the Internet works best.
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