What Does SpotCrime Do for Open Data?

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SpotCrime was founded in 2007 as a crime mapping and alert website. Since then, we've become an advocate for open, equal, and fair access to incident based crime data (RMS/CAD), opening up crime data all across the world.

Below are a few of the major impacts SpotCrime has had on the open data movement. We don’t believe any current or past crime mapping company can come close to the impact we've made.


Standardization - SOCS
We developed the SpotCrime Open Crime Standard (SOCS) which is being adopted by agencies nationwide.

Free Software - SpotCrime Catapult
SpotCrime Catapult is free software we developed in 2013 to help police agencies pull a public file from their CAD/RMS. We only ask that agencies using the software make the file created using Catapult open to anyone, not just SpotCrime.

Shaping Policy - SB644
We were honored when SpotCrime was asked to testify on the Maryland open data bill SB644 which took effect in June 2014. Read our testimony here. We also believe we’ve had a direct impact on the White House Police Data Initiative.

Crime Data Transparency Ranking by City
With our knowledge of what police agencies are doing with crime data nationwide, we’ve been able to rank cities based on their transparency with crime data.

Open Data Checklist
We know what makes a great open crime data feed and we are happy to share our insight with anyone. See the checklist here.

NO exclusivity
We are not a vendor to police agencies so, unlike many crime mapping companies, we never ask for exclusive access to crime data. This keeps the data open and available for anyone looking for it.

Great Case Study 
Finally, SpotCrime is a great example of how a small business successfully utilizes and benefits economically from open data:
  • We are the most visited crime mapping and alert website in the US, estimated larger than all other crime mapping sites combined.
  • We are mapping crime in almost every major statistical area in the US, the entire UK, and parts of Canada and Australia.
  • We are a business functioning without receiving a penny from any government agency or any outside investment. 
  • We have been able to create free products for residents  and keep services free for government. 
  • We are just under 1 million subscribers - (estimated) more subscribers than any other crime mapping company in the US.
  • We have over 2 million visits monthly.
  • We send out over 11 million email alerts monthly.
  • We have highlighted how, in multiple cities, the crime incident dataset is normally one of the most popular data set on an open data portal.

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