SpotCrime Crime Data Transparency Ranking 2020 Update

The SpotCrime Crime Data Transparency Ranking was created in 2013 and ranks cities on how open they are with crime data. Periodically, we update the ranking to reflect the ever-changing landscape of open crime data. 

This year we have decided to make a few changes in regard to our ranking procedures, all which are outlined below.

The good news is there has been an increase in deployment and use of open crime data portals. We’ve been able to bump up the ranking of quite a few cities because of this!

Updated ranking procedure

The adoption rate and use of open data portals has increased significantly, so we thought it fair to reflect this common use of technology as an element in our ranking scores. 

Previously, a city could receive a ‘2’ ranking as long as they published data timely somewhere to their website in some sort of machine-readable format. Now, it is only possible to get the highest ranking of a ‘2’ if the data is being published openly and timely to a data portal. 

The difference being that a dedicated portal and feed make it easier to find and download data. Additionally, data portals typically have a different level of accountability - there is almost always some sort of documentation included as well as contact information to use in case of any concerns or questions about the data arise. 

A score of ‘1’ still means a city makes the data available, but it may not be updated timely, it is not included on an open data portal, it is not available in machine readable format, or it is hard to find (i.e. only delivered via an email distribution list or you have to ask to have access).

A score of ‘0’ means there is no real way for the public to find, collect, use, and reshare the data. Any type of barrier to accessing crime data - like giving access to a private company or vendor over the public, requiring the public to obtain data only though a FOIA request, or something like a ‘media only’ password protected portal - constitutes a score of 0. The 0 is especially egregious if a city is giving a crime data feed to a vendor, but shows no effort to make the data available to the public as well.

New cities

Previously, we’ve included the most populated 50 cities and cities who claim to be participating in the Police Data Initiative. In this round of ranking we made sure to include all 50 state capital cities.

State capitals may not be the largest city in a state, but they are the cities where local legislation is decided. SpotCrime has provided testimony on laws regarding access to information, so we know the importance of law making when it comes to crime data transparency.

The good

There were nine cities whose rankings were moved from a 0 to a 2. All nine of these cities (Durham, Charleston, Hampton, Long Beach, Minneapolis, Omaha, San Jose, Saint Paul) now publish their crime data on an open data portal! This is especially exciting in cities like Minneapolis and San Jose who championed their private crime mapping vendor companies in the past. Both cities have moved away from directing the public to private third parties for data and are now publishing the data themselves in an open and unrestricted format!

There were 5 cities who moved from a 1 to a 2. All 5 of these cities (Baltimore, Fort Worth, Memphis, Phoenix, Virginia Beach) did have data available previously, but now share the data in a truly open format.

There are eighteen state capital cities that were given a ranking of 2. Of those 18 cities, 9 were already included in previous rounds of ranking. 

The bad

There were four cities (Buffalo, Columbus, Miami, Orlando) we had to demote from a 2 to a 1 because of our new guidelines - they have not begun publishing their data to an open data portal. 

Buffalo went from a 2 to 1 because their open data portal is not working, there is no timeline behind when it will be fixed, and the only way to access the data is via a FOIA request. 

In Columbus there is a city run open data portal, but there is no crime data included. Instead the police department has chosen a fairly hard to use platform that makes it difficult to grab city wide data easily. Any type of platform that makes it hard to collect crime data is a disservice to the public. Why limit the ability to see city wide crime coverage?

Fifteen capital cities received a 1 ranking (two cities were included in previous rankings). 

The Ugly

The good news is that we did not demote any city to a 0! However, there are still twenty-one cities we have not been able to convince to publish data openly.

Seventeen out of the 50 state capital cities received a ‘0’ score (2 were included on previous rankings). 

How does your city rank in terms of transparency with crime data? Think that we should change our ranking? Every day we are seeing more and more agencies embrace transparency so please let us know if we’ve gotten something wrong!