SpotCrime - The Public's Crime Map

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 ve...

SpotCrime is mapping crime in Will County, IL ! Will County is located in the south west portion of the of Chicago  metropolitan area, with it;s county seat residing in Joliet .  The population is about 502k and is one of the fastest growing counties in the US.  The Will County Sheriff's Office releases this crime information weekly to SpotCrime and SpotCrime maps it for free! Using the crime type search and keyword search, you can see that a number of the vandalism incidents involve windows.  To perform the search, check only the 'Vandalism' box and in the Keyword search bar enter 'window'. Vandalism in the past month involving windows Most of the windows were broken were rear windows of cars or front windows of a residence.  There's no reason given behind the vandalism (nothing was reported stolen or missing) so the best way to prevent these kinds of crimes from happening is community policing .   Save yourse...

Violence seems to be the answer for residents in the Windy City of Chicago. If you check only the 'shootings' icon on the SpotCrime map for the past month, your results will prove to be very alarming. Brought to attention from Chicago affiliate WGN , the city experienced 42 shootings since 7 PM Friday this past weekend. This comes to an average of 11 shootings a day in the past month, including a 1 year old who was shot in the shoulder Sunday evening. Google search the words "Chicago Shooting" and you won't come up empty handed. You'll find another story, among dozens, that trumps this past weekend--50 shootings over Father's Day weekend of this year. The majority of those shootings occurred on the South and West sides and are reported to be gang related. Chicago has recently lifted their hand gun ban by a Supreme court ruling in the McDonald v. Chicago case. Stay alert, stay protected and stay informed. Steer clear of violent areas (keep your child...

We've just launched three new city apps for the iPhone App Store. In addition to NYC, SpotCrime now has apps for London, Chicago, and our home city Baltimore.

The following is an example of a shootings query on the SpotCrime map for 2008.