SpotCrime - The Public's Crime Map

Tis the season to rank the best Christmas movies! Below are our 10 personal Christmas favorites. And, since we map crime on the reg, we’ve included a crime map for each city the movie takes place. A Christmas Carol Bah Humbug!  Ebenezer Scrooge should be arrested for the way he’s treated friends, family, and employees! A great holiday movie to make you realize what Christmas is really about. Crime map of assaults in London, England Bad Santa Hey, can I get another drink down here? This isn’t a very cheery movie, but since the police are very apparent in this black comedy we’ve included it in our list. Billie Bob Thorton is a very, very bad Santa who uses his Santa suit as a way to steal from stores during the holiday season.  Map of crime in Phoenix, AZ The Santa Clause Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night! When I get home, I'm getting a CAT scan! Scott Calvin’s transformation from an average guy to THE Santa Claus gets h...

Let's put another shrimp on the barbie, SpotCrime is now mapping crime in Australia! SpotCrime is mapping crime in the state of Queensland . Queensland is the third most populated state in Australia with a population of over 4.7 million. Its capital is Brisbane which is the third most populated city in Australia, behind Sidney and Melbourne. Queensland government provides the data for the SpotCrime maps. Because the government has been open with their data, in addition to the Queensland police crime map , there is another 3rd party who maps the data too . We're excited to be mapping crime in yet another country. It's awesome to see crime mapped on the same map across towns/cities/states in the US and even more interesting to do it country to country. Want to see crime mapped in your country? Let us know . Let your police department know. Ask them to make their crime data open and available for anyone to use and share. Stay aware, stay safe!

There’s a lot to learn from UVA - Jackie’s story with Phi Kappa Psi , missing student Hannah Graham , the brutal murder of Yeardley Love - a culture on campus in which violence and sexual assaults are taken with a soft-handed approach. In each case at UVA, and across campuses nationwide, there is political as well as financial pressure for the campus police and administration to downplay or cover-up crimes committed on or by students either on campus or off. Jackie’s story recently recounted in a Rolling Stone article uncovered a broken system that fails victims and aids attackers. Students are calling for Dean Eramo to be fired for her role in keeping sexual assaults within campus authority rather than reporting them directly to the local police department. Since the story was published, many more UVA students and alumni have come forward with similar stories. It’s been brought to light that even when assaults are kept within campus authority, punishments are weak, or non-e...

Since we've been mapping crime data in Philadelphia, we've decided to enter a submission into the OpenDataPhilly Visualization contest. Philly has been one of the most progressive cities in terms of open crime data. They've published an open crime data feed since the beginning. The maps we submitted to the visualization contest include SpotCrime.com and our daily and weekly email alerts. Both maps use Google to plot Philly crime data that's available at the OpenDataPhilly.org website. We've been using Google maps since our conception. In addition to our web and email, we also have apps for Android , iPhone , and Amazon Fire . And, we have SpotCrime.info (no ads) and MyLocalCrime (different colors and icons). As you may know, the SpotCrime  site is interactive. You can search by address, date range, keyword, date, and/or crime type on our Philly SpotCrime map. Learn more about searching by date range here . Clicking on each icon brings up and information ...

SpotCrime is now mapping crime in Newark, DE ! Newark is located in New Castle County in the second tiniest state in the US! Newark has a population of just over 30k, holding about 30% of Delaware's population. It's home of the University of Delaware Fighting Blue Hens. And, it's a short commute to both Baltimore, MD and Philadelphia, PA and is only 12 miles away from Wilmington , Delaware's largest city. Interested in learning about crime in Newark? Check out Spotcrime.com or MyLocalCrime.com . Need a quick view of the data? SpotCrime.info works great and it's mobile friendly. Don't forget to check out our apps for Android , iPhone , and Amazon Fire . You can sign up for you local crime alert here. Stay aware, stay safe!

Check it out - Ann Arbor, MI crime is now getting mapped on SpotCrime ! Ann Arbor is the 6th largest city in Michigan , with a population just over 113k, only about 1k less than the Michigan state capitol, Lansing . It's home to the University of Michigan (where as Michigan State  is located in East Lansing). The economy is driven by U of Michigan, as well as biotech and high tech companies. It's home to companies like Weather Underground , Google Adwords , and Pfizer. Ann Arbor has been one of the most recent cities to embrace open data and as a result is now getting mapped on SpotCrime! Check out the Ann Arbor SpotCrime map on the front page of SpotCrime , SpotCrime.info , or MyLocalCrime.com . Don't forget to sign up for your local crime alerts . Stay aware, stay safe!

We came across an infographic by the Sunlight Foundation  listing top datasets that drive engagement when published to a city’s open data portal. Most popular open datasets Notice anything? Crime related data is listed not once, but twice! So, why aren’t more cities publishing crime data openly?  We’re not sure. However, whenever we reach out to a police agency to collect data to map on SpotCrime and send out in our free crime alerts , we make sure to ask for open crime data and explain what ‘open’ means. Check out the definition of open data here .  More importantly, we do not demand exclusivity for the data. Some crime mapping vendors do this. Socrata , an open data vendor to cities across the nation, notes - “In addition to eliminating technological and usability barriers, it is important to remove legal barriers, such as distribution and copyright restrictions." All of the crime mapping vendors we're aware of have a terms of use on thei...

NFL stadiums can hold anywhere from 52,525 people at TFC Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, MN to 105,121 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, TX . That’s a lot of tailgaters and pedestrian traffic for local police to have to worry about! In addition to mapping NFL football player committed crimes, like Ray Rice’s domestic assault in an elevator, we’ve also attempted to map NFL Football Fan assaults. NFL fans seem to be known for fighting more than their college fan counterparts , even if they’re rooting for the same team . You’d think adults would be able to control their egos better than your average college kid, but I guess when you put 50,000-105,000 fans in a confined space watching large men hit each other as hard as they can and then throw alcohol in the mix there’s bound to be a fight . Check out the assault at University of Phoenix stadium mapped on SpotCrime. It involved 49er and Cardinal fans . Another assault involving 49er fans happened at Levi’s Stadium in S...