SpotCrime - The Public's Crime Map

Surveillance drones and spy planes, winter crime rate, more police agencies begin sharing crime data with the public, jail costs went up when crime went down, looking at crime concentration in specific neighborhoods, giving ex-offenders a second chance, and more... POLICE CONDUCT Memphis Police increasing patrols for ‘Operation Winter Freeze’  (NewsChannel3 Memphis) see also:  Houston leaders increasing patrols in 'hot spot' violent crime areas; 40+ homicides already in 2021  (KHOU11) Mediation of complaints against police: a review of programs in Los Angeles and New York City  (Taylor and Francis online) Policing Policy Trends: Balancing Accountability With Safety  (NCSL.org) Four State Police troopers arrested, identified after 'use of force encounters' at Troop F in Monroe  (The Advocate) CRIME RATE New research examines the cost of crime in the U.S., estimated to be $2.6 trillion in a single year  (Vanderbilt University) 2020 a ‘Perfect Storm’ for Homicide Surge  (U

We’ve be arguing for open crime data since our launch in 2007. Now that the open data movement has picked momentum, we are hoping to see more and more police agencies and cities around the country embrace the open data model with public crime data. This post has been inspired by many articles we’ve read recently. Check out our Open Data board on Pinterest  for more resources. What is Open Crime Data? Open crime data should include all crime related information that is not subject to privacy laws like victim’s names or juvenile information. It shouldn’t be a requirement by police agencies to fill out a lengthy FOIA to get public information. Instead, it should be released by agencies in a timely manner (like daily) instead of monthly or quarterly or annually like UCR reports. A good solution would be to post the information in a machine readable format on the agency’s website. For example, Philadelphia is has an API, Baltimore uses an open data portal, and Los Angeles has a crime da

Isn’t it ironic how the day after we celebrate being thankful for what we have, we indulge, and sometimes become violent, over material items we want. Thanksgiving marks the beginning of the Christmas season. With Christmas comes shopping and with shopping comes Black Friday. Black Friday is always the Friday after Thanksgiving and derives it’s name because the day after Thanksgiving is notoriously when retailers began to start making a profit on the year; they’re ‘in the black’ on the books instead of being ‘in the red’. If you’ve ever been Black Friday shopping before, you’re familiar with the early hours, long lines, and unbeatable sales. Over the past couple of years, retailers have begun to open their doors earlier on Black Friday - as early as midnight to give shoppers the opportunity to shop the entire day. This year, some stores will be opening on Thanksgiving Day! For some reason, these earlier hours, paired with ridiculous sales, have led to crazier and larger crowds.

What is swatting? You've probably seen it in the news recently - famous celebrities in Los Angeles like Chris Brown , Miley Cyrus ,  Justin Bieber , Ashton Kutcher , Simon Cowell , Tom Cruise , and the Kardashians have been targeted. Swatting is when a hacker pretends to be someone by hacking their phone line, cal\lling 911, and reporting a fake emergency to the victim's address - normally a kidnapping/hostages, bombings, shootings, or murders - which requires heavy police presence to respond to the home, sometimes with guns drawn, only to have police show up to find that the call was a hoax. It seems to be an evolution of ' phreakers ' who gained notice in the 1970s when they would hack into phone companies computers and make free long-distance calls. These calls are very dangerous because they are similar to calls departments receive about real shootings  or murders. The police show up ready for a crazy person, possibly armed, only to find innocent victims. B

SpotCrime has begun to map crime data from the LAPD again ! The public data feed Spotcrime was using to map LAPD data was interrupted in 2011 when  LAPD moved from an open mapping system to first providing data solely to the LA Times and then contracting with a police vendor to map crime for the public. Recently, the LAPD published a public crime data feed again on their website via a FTP (file transfer protocol). We feel this is great step in the right direction for departments, especially for departments of LAPD's size. A public data feed in spreadsheet format available for anyone to view electronically with no restrictions on sharing shows true transparency with crime data within a department. Make sure to thank the LAPD for their work toward publishing a feed. And if you live in the LA area, be sure to sign up for your local crime alert from SpotCrime . We will send you a crime map tailored to your address and specific radius directly to your inbox! Stay aware, st

The FBI recently published their annual 2011 UCR statistics for cities across the US.  These statistics are compiled by the FBI with data that is submitted by police departments.  Most departments across the US voluntarily submit their crime data to the FBI on a monthly basis.  If you're interested in UCR statistics for your city, give your local PD a ring - UCR stats are public information. You can check out and download the FBI 2011 UCR data here Out of curiosity, I created a few charts to visualize what my chances were of being a victim of crimes in cities with a population greater than 1 million.  These cities included Chicago , Dallas , Houston , Las Vegas , Los Angeles , New York , Philadelphia , Phoenix , San Antonio , and San Diego . Check out chances of being a victim of a violent crime in this chart.  Violent crimes are crimes against a person.  They include murder, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault.  These crimes are sometimes the most dangerous crime

The Los Angeles Daily News reported yesterday that several rewards were offered for crimes that have been committed yet the criminal remains at large. Being unable to find one of the incidents, I decided to add one of the crimes using SpotCrime's "report a crime", a function that allows you to report crimes and once inputted will display on SpotCrime's interactive map (once you click "user reported" crimes). This is one of the ways we help citizens fight crime by allowing them disseminate information and report crimes themselves.