1. Nextdoor is a private social networking website for neighbors. Crime is a popular topic among neighbors on the site - approximately 1 in 6 posts created on Nextdoor are about crime.

    Here is how you can share SpotCrime on Nextdoor:

    1. Figure out the SpotCrime URL you’d like to share:
    2. Log in to your Nextdoor account and head to the home newsfeed.

    3. Click on ‘Message’ and choose the neighbors you’d like to share with and the 'Crime and Safety' category. Note: If the message box prompts you with a ‘What are you Posting About?’ message, just select ‘Other’.

    3. Add a subject line and body of your message. Make sure to be descriptive so your neighbors know what you are asking them to click on. Feel free to use the information on SpotCrime as a part of your description - the crime type, crime details, or even a screenshot. Paste your SpotCrime URL in the body of your message. 
    Posting a screenshot and crime details URL of a shooting mapped on SpotCrime.

    4. Click ‘Post’.

    5. Enjoy! Congrats, you have just informed your neighbors of local crime it the area! Your neighbors do not need to be signed in to SpotCrime to view and share crimes, but make sure to let any interested neighbors know about our free email alerts (sign up here).  If they have any questions about the source of the crime, we include a source link for every single crime on SpotCrime!

    Don’t use Nextdoor? No worries, you can do the same thing with your local community watch group on Facebook, neighborhood watch email list-serv, Twitter, etc! Feel free to use SpotCrime however it fits into your community. 

    Don't see your city's crime data on SpotCrime? Let us know and let your police department know! SpotCrime will map crime and send out email alerts for free as long as the police department makes crime data available.

    Stay aware, stay safe!
    SpotCrime.com - crime in your neighborhood.
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    Labels: Crime Alerts crime data Crime maps neighborhood watch nextdoor.com police transparency
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  2. The Internet can’t seem to come to an agreement on the 10 Most Dangerous cities in the US.

    There are quite a few websites ranking US cities as most dangerous, but not all sites list the same cities. This may be because of what data was used - some sites only ranked cities with a specific population, some looked at only violent crime, some overall crime. Sites that have a 10 most dangerous list include 24/7 Wallstreet, Forbes, World Atlas, Safewise, The Active Times, IBTimes, and NeighborhoodScout.

    We decided to compare all of those lists to get you a list of 10 Most Dangerous Cities in the US (an aggregate version).

    To our surprise, Chicago, with the amount of gun violence the city faces daily, was not found on a single list. We didn’t find New York City listed either, however, NYPD has been showing a decline in crime in NYC since the 90s. In the past New Orleans has ranked high, however, they were only found listed as dangerous once.

    The good news - currently in the past month, crime is only up in 2 of the cities on our list (Memphis and Milwaukee). Even better news? Crime is down nationwide.

    Without further delay here it is - a list of the most dangerous cities in America with some SpotCrime analysis of crime for this month:
    1. St Louis, MO
    Crime in St Louis on SpotCrime
    Crime in St Louis, MO
    According to the reports SpotCrime receives from local police agencies, crime overall in St. Louis, Missouri is currently down by 92% when compared to the previous month.

    Property crime such as theft, vandalism, and burglary is down in St. Louis, Missouri. Fortunately, property crime and overall crime have both decreased this month, with property crime decreasing by 93% when compared to the previous month.

    Violent crime including shootings, assaults, and robberies is down in St. Louis, Missouri. Fortunately, violent crime and overall crime have both decreased this month, with violent crime decreasing by 91% when compared to the previous month.

    2. Detroit, MI
    Crime in Detroit on SpotCrime
    Crime in Detroit, MI
    According to the reports SpotCrime receives from local police agencies, crime overall in Detroit, Michigan is currently down by 31% when compared to the previous month.

    Property crime such as theft, vandalism, and burglary is down in Detroit, Michigan. Fortunately, property crime and overall crime have both decreased this month, with property crime decreasing by 20% when compared to the previous month.

    Violent crime including shootings, assaults, and robberies is down in Detroit, Michigan. Fortunately, violent crime and overall crime have both decreased this month, with violent crime decreasing by 34% when compared to the previous month.

    3. Memphis, TN
    Crime in Memphis on SpotCrime
    Crime in Memphis, TN
    According to the reports SpotCrime receives from local police agencies, crime overall in Memphis, Tennessee is currently up by 21% when compared to the previous month.

    Property crime such as theft, vandalism, and burglary is up in Memphis, Tennessee. Unfortunately, property crime and overall crime have both increased this month, with property crime increasing by 11% when compared to the previous month.

    Violent crime including shootings, assaults, and robberies is up in Memphis, Tennessee. Unfortunately, violent crime and overall crime have both increased this month, with violent crime increasing by 14% when compared to the previous month.

    4. Baltimore, MD
    Crime in Baltimore, MD
    According to the reports SpotCrime receives from local police agencies, crime overall in Baltimore, Maryland is currently down by 14% when compared to the previous month.

    Property crime such as theft, vandalism, and burglary is down in Baltimore, Maryland. Fortunately, property crime and overall crime have both decreased this month, with property crime decreasing by 20% when compared to the previous month.

    Violent crime including shootings, assaults, and robberies is down in Baltimore, Maryland. Fortunately, violent crime and overall crime have both decreased this month, with violent crime decreasing by 25% when compared to the previous month.

    5. Oakland, CA
    Crime in Oakland, CA
    According to the reports SpotCrime receives from local police agencies, crime overall in Oakland, California is currently down by 10% when compared to the previous month.

    Property crime such as theft, vandalism, and burglary is down in Oakland, California. Fortunately, property crime and overall crime have both decreased this month, with property crime decreasing by 9% when compared to the previous month.

    Violent crime including shootings, assaults, and robberies is down in Oakland, California. Fortunately, violent crime and overall crime have both decreased this month, with violent crime decreasing by 7% when compared to the previous month.

    6. (tie) Birmingham, AL
    Crime in Birmingham, AL
    SpotCrime is not mapping much crime in Birmingham, Alabama.

    As a matter of fact, no one is mapping crime in Birmingham, AL.

    Birmingham does not have an open data feed and they have not responded to FOIA requests for crime incident information.

    Because of this, we don’t have an analysis for you.

    6. (tie) Milwaukee, WI
    Crime in Milwaukee, WI
    According to the reports SpotCrime receives from local police agencies, crime overall in Milwaukee, Wisconsin is currently up by 9% when compared to the previous month.

    Property crime such as theft, vandalism, and burglary is up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Unfortunately, property crime and overall crime have both increased this month, with property crime increasing by 17% when compared to the previous month.

    Violent crime including shootings, assaults, and robberies is up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Unfortunately, violent crime and overall crime have both increased this month, with violent crime increasing by 9% when compared to the previous month.
    7. (tie) Kansas City, MO
    Crime in Kansas City on SpotCrime
    Crime in Kansas City, MO
    According to the reports SpotCrime receives from local police agencies, crime overall in Kansas City, Missouri is currently down by 24% when compared to the previous month.

    Property crime such as theft, vandalism, and burglary is down in Kansas City, Missouri. Fortunately, property crime and overall crime have both decreased this month, with property crime decreasing by 26% when compared to the previous month.

    Violent crime including shootings, assaults, and robberies is down in Kansas City, Missouri. Fortunately, violent crime and overall crime have both decreased this month, with violent crime decreasing by 18% when compared to the previous month.

    It’s counterpart, Kansas City, KS was in a top 10 list once. They took their data feed offline in April and it has yet to be restored.

    7. (tie) Rockford, IL
    Crime in Rockford, IL
    Crime in Rockford, IL
    This is another city where we have had an incredibly hard time getting the police department to be transparent with crime data.

    We have no analysis for you, but we do try to map breaking news in Rockford for our Rockford subscribers.

    8. Tukwila, WA
    Crime in Tukwila, WA
    According to the reports SpotCrime receives from local police agencies, crime overall in Tukwila, Washington is currently down by 92% when compared to the previous month.

    Property crime such as theft, vandalism, and burglary is down in Tukwila, Washington. Fortunately, property crime and overall crime have both decreased this month, with property crime decreasing by 94% when compared to the previous month.

    Violent crime including shootings, assaults, and robberies is down in Tukwila, Washington. Fortunately, violent crime and overall crime have both decreased this month, with violent crime decreasing by 97% when compared to the previous month.

    9. (tie) Camden, NJ
    Crime in Camden, NJ
    Camden, NJ police merged with the Camden County, NJ police recently. And alas, another area where it is a 'dead zone' for access to public crime information.

    Camden County Police are listed as participating on the White House Police Data Initiative since the creation of the PDI, however, they have Camden County has yet to release any crime incident data to the public.

    We do not have an analysis for you.
    9. (tie) Myrtle Beach, SC
    Crime in Myrtle Beach, SC
    According to the reports SpotCrime receives from local police agencies, crime overall in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina is currently down by 17% when compared to the previous month.

    Property crime such as theft, vandalism, and burglary is down in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Fortunately, property crime and overall crime have both decreased this month, with property crime decreasing by 13% when compared to the previous month.

    Violent crime including shootings, assaults, and robberies is down in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Fortunately, violent crime and overall crime have both decreased this month, with violent crime decreasing by 22% when compared to the previous month.

    10. Emeryville, CA
    Crime in Emeryville, CA
    According to the reports SpotCrime receives from local police agencies, crime overall in Emeryville, California is currently down by 10% when compared to the previous month.

    Property crime such as theft, vandalism, and burglary is down in Emeryville, California. Fortunately, property crime and overall crime have both decreased this month, with property crime decreasing by 16% when compared to the previous month.

    Violent crime including shootings, assaults, and robberies is up in Emeryville, California. Even with a violent crime increase of 11%, overall crime is still down 10% from the previous month.

    Were there any cities you were expecting to be on this list? Let us know!

    Want to stay aware of crime in your neighborhood? Sign up to receive free daily crime alerts directly to your inbox.
    SpotCrime.com - crime in your neighborhood.
    Posted by
    Labels: camden crime emeryville crime kansas city crime milwaukee crime most dangerous cities myrtle beach crime tukwila crime US crime violent crime
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  3. The Police Data Initiative is one of the programs rolled out by the White House’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing that encourages transparency with data. There are over 120 agencies participating in the PDI right now.

    PROS AND CONS (mostly pros)
    We’ve applied the SpotCrime Transparency ranking to PDI agencies below.

    As critical as it may seem to rank agencies, the ability to even consider a ranking is one of the reasons why the PDI is so important. It gives the public a chance to see how their agency matches up against others, creating more accountability. This ranking is not meant to discourage, but rather act as part of a public feedback loop that encourages agencies to accept criticism and make their data stronger and more transparent.

    PRO: Agencies can pick and choose which datasets they want to release giving the opportunity for more agencies to participate. The types of datasets include (but aren’t limited to):
     - RMS/CAD data
     - Use of force
     - Officer Complaints
     - Officer Involved shootings
     - Arrests
     - Summarized crime data (graphs and totals)
     - CCTV locations
     - Biased based policing
     - Traffic stops by Race and Ethnicity
    CON: Giving agencies the ability to pick and choose leaves nationwide data ‘incomplete’, leaving it hard to see how one agency stacks up against the other.

    PRO: Participate at your own pace.
    CON: Movement at a snail's pace. Since there is there is no set timeline to start posting data agencies like Camden County, NJ, which has been listed as participating since inception, have yet to post a single dataset.

    PRO: Publish what you have. A lot of police agencies are already publishing datasets for public consumption and are using these datasets to easily and seamlessly participate in the PDI.
    CON: Publishing data ‘as is’ means there is no standardization occurring. One agency may be updating their dataset daily, while one (Hampton, VA) is only publishing when they choose. One arrest dataset could look completely different than another city’s arrest dataset. Some agencies are releasing machine readable formats (API, csv, xml) others are only publishing pdfs.

    SpotCrime Crime Incident Data Transparency Ranking
    Since we can only speak to crime incident data, we looked specifically for an up-to-date crime incident dataset (RMS/CAD data) that has been updated within the past couple of weeks within all of the agencies listed as participating in the PDI at the time this blog post was published (126 agencies).

    We’ve noticed there are a few agencies have some sort of open crime incident data feed and aren’t listing the feed on the PDI website. We’re not sure why. However, if there is a feed available, even if it’s not listed on the website, we are taking it into consideration in our rankings.

    0 Ranking
    A 0 ranking means there is no way to get open access to incident crime data. We found that:
    • 54 of the 126 agencies received a 0 ranking.
    • 34 of 54 agencies have no crime data feed.
    • 20 of the 54 agencies give data feeds to a vendor and do not supply and open crime data feed for the public. Proprietary crime mapping vendors typically restricts access to public crime incident information. The agency may think their crime data is public via these vendors, however, the data is not open. In other works - you can look at the data, but you can’t touch it. A solution to this is to create an open feed - open meaning data can be collected, used, and shared by anyone.
    1 Ranking
    A 1 ranking means there may be a way to get crime incident data, but there’s a caveat - data is not machine readable, it’s out of date, etc.
    • 23 of the 120 agencies received a 1 ranking.
    • 11 of the 23 agencies give better or more up to date data feeds to their vendors than to their public.
    2 Ranking
    A 2 ranking means there is an open and unrestricted crime data feed. These agencies are not favoring a vendor over the public, are updating their feed frequently, and data sets are machine readable. These agencies are great examples for others to follow.
    • 49 of the 126 agencies have a 2 ranking.
    • 23 of these 49 agencies utilize a proprietary crime mapping vendor, however, they give equal and fair access to the public as the do the vendor.
    • A majority of these agencies post data to an open data website.
    How did your agency matchup? Is your agency open with crime incident data? Are they participating in the PDI? Let us know and ask them to participate in the PDI!
    SpotCrime.com - crime in your neighborhood.
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    Labels: crime data crime data standard open data police data initiative police transparency
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  4. We've added a new feature to SpotCrime!

    On all of our city maps there is a new tab called 'Crime In'. The 'Crime In' tab shows a summary of crime information for specific cities where we are populating crime.

    Our hope is this summary data and analysis, paired with our daily email alerts, will give residents an even better idea of crime in their neighborhood over time.

    You can Google search with the keywords '(your city) crime map' and a SpotCrime city map should be one of the first results.

    You can also navigate to our city map pages by clicking on 'Browse by State' and choosing a state.

    From the state page you'll see a list of cities. These are our 'city maps'. Choose any city to see crime in that city.
    SpotCrime 'State Page' list of cities.

    Above the map on the city map page you will see a 'Crime In' tab.

    Clicking on this tab leads shows you a summary of the data you are seeing on the SpotCrime map. You can find out if crime in your city has increased or decreased from month to month. We break out violent crime and property crime too.

    SpotCrime's new 'Crime In' tab for Austin, TX.
    There is also a table showing the number of crimes last week, last 30 days, previous 30 days, and the past 6 months.

    Don't see any data on the map? Let us know and let your police department know. SpotCrime maps public crime information and sends out email alerts for free! We encourage open, equal, and fair access to crime data.

    Let us know what you think of the new Crime In tab! Shoot us an email feedback[at]spotcrime[dot]com. Stay aware, stay safe.
    SpotCrime.com - crime in your neighborhood.
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    Labels: crime analysis crime data crime in crime map open data Spotcrime
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