SpotCrime - The Public's Crime Map

You can now check out crime in your area on your TV! SpotCrime on Apple TV In an effort to place crime data into the hands of as many people as possible we’ve launched the SpotCrime Apple TV app . The app will pinpoint your location and show up to date crime information in your area.  You’ll be able to use the Apple TV remote to search for a specific address, drag the map to a new location, view a crime list, and see more detail on each crime by selecting a specific icon.  We hope the app is another channel (no pun intended) to seamlessly access relevant crime information. If you prefer Chromecast, you can cast the SpotCrime app to your TV with any device running Android 4.4.2 or higher. SpotCrime crime list on Apple TV Don’t see crime in your area? Let us know and ask your local police agency to share data. SpotCrime will map crime and send out email alerts to residents for free.  We believe openness with crime data will create a higher level of tra

Good news: we are seeing more Canadian agencies make an attempt to move toward increased transparency within their police agencies. A few Canadian cities have released their own versions of crime maps.  The bad news is the maps they are creating could be way better.  Three ways Canada can make better crime maps: Open (and machine readable) : To start, each map should come with some sort of open, machine readable data feed. This will allow the data to be easily consumed by anyone. Only a few of the maps do this currently. Date : The data included on the maps could be better. One city doesn’t give a specific date, just a range. Another city only gives the month. Some cities provide data months behind. Location : Some sort of address should be included. We’ve found typically in Canada the icons/addresses are anonymized and sometimes moved blocks away. Anonymizing sensitive isn’t a bad thing and is needed in order to help protect victims. Moving crime incidents blocks away from

We’re happy to announce the newest addition to the SpotCrime family - SpotSpec.com ! SpotSpec, powered by SpotCrime , takes an in-depth look at crime around specific places and generates crime rankings and reports for locations like schools, restaurants, and hotels. The ultimate goal of SpotSpec is to provide a useful tool that creates awareness with the public, highlights the importance of police data transparency, and increases community trust with police agencies. For now, we have rolled it out exclusively for Baltimore City Schools , Baltimore County schools , and Baltimore City restaurants , but hope to be able to add more areas and locations soon. Each location receives:  A calculated SpotCrime SpotSpec score A ranking against other similar locations And an individually tailored Crime Spec report We hope you find this new tool useful and interesting. Go out, explore, be aware, and be safe. Head on over to www.SpotSpec.com and let us know what

Two agencies, The Vera Institute of Justice in accordance with The Police Foundation and the NYPD in accordance with Microsoft, have recently announced their own separate development, test, and implementation of a model for law enforcement agencies aiming to upgrade current CompStat processes. Both The Vera Institute and NYPD are calling their new versions of CompStat ‘CompStat 2.0’. The Vera Institute has a history of work on public safety related issues like police management practices, police-community relations, misconduct, and policing in democratic societies worldwide. And, the Vera Institute worked with the NYPD in the past on development of projects including The Manhattan Summons project as well as the development and implementation of the original CompStat launched by NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton in the early 90’s. The New CompStat 2.0 (two different versions) Unfortunately, we weren’t able to receive any information from NYPD PIO office on their version o

Public data belongs in the hands of the public. Not in Kalamazoo currently. Kalamazoo Police Department recently shut down their open, unrestricted crime data feed and moved to to a closed, proprietary third party crime mapping website. Open, unrestricted crime data feed Here is what an open, unrestricted public crime data feed looks like on an independently run crime map. And here is what a closed, proprietary public crime data feed looks like on an independently run crime map. Notice a difference? No, crime didn’t decrease with a new crime map. No, the police department didn’t stop responding to calls. The difference is data is no longer openly available in Kalamazoo for the public and press to collect use, and share. Instead, if you want to see what crime is happening in Kalamazoo, the only way to do so is to head to the new crime mapping website that places restrictions on how the public and press can use the public crime data that appears on the

Earlier this month, the Petersburg Virginia Police put out an announcement that they were allowing the public to view crime data on a paid vendor's website. This is a huge step forward for the city because access to data like this has never been available before. The plus is now Petersburg citizens and the press can look at the crime data. The minus is the city supported vendor restricts sharing and publication of the information. The classic “you can look at the information, but don’t share it, independently tabulate it, or report on the data” because that would violate the vendor’s business interests. As a result, crimes can’t be shared on social media and the press can’t use the information for reporting.  SpotCrime has been asking for an open data feed for this kind of data for at least five years . Each time, we’ve been told that the technology was not available to make the data public. Nearby agencies, however, have been doing this for years. Meanwhile, the Pet

SpotCrime  continues to be the only major crime mapping company to break out shootings into it’s own icon. Often it is very difficult to identify that a shooting has happened from the crime data we receive. A lot of the time, we are left to using the description associated with an incident (given there is a description provided) to determine if a shooting occurred.  Most crime mapping sites will map a shooting with some sort of assault icon. This causes shootings to get lost - filed under the same icon as fist fights, knife attacks, kidnappings, and verbal assaults. We believe this does not give a full picture of crime in the area. We rely on open crime incident data sets, RMS data, CAD data, UCR data and/or a mix of the bunch. It just depends on what agencies make available. Not all agencies make the same data available. The inconsistency in datasets from agency to agency and jurisdiction to jurisdiction has also made this task incredibly difficult. This is one of th

In the past month, two Canadian cities introduced online public facing crime maps. Early October, Toronto police sent out a press release on their new public facing crime mapping system, and recently, Ridge Meadows RCMP put out two maps for Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows. Here’s the link to the Toronto Police map page: http://maps.torontopolice.on.ca/ Powered by Esri, the Toronto map is actually three maps: major crimes (MCI), shootings, and annual data sets for the MCI. Toronto PD gets a plus here because it is the only agency, I know, that has been breaking out shooting data for the public. My understanding is that this was done as a result of the increase in shootings in the 80’s a result of gang warfare. Regardless, it is unique. That is the last compliment I’ll pay to these burdensome and nearly useless maps. Here’s a link to the disclaimer language that shows up as a pop up on the map: http://bit.ly/1k4JNaT This is typical disclaimer language takin

Police transparency and openness is colliding full force with technology and trust. We continue to run into issues collecting crime data from agencies nationwide , however, our push for open, equal, and fair access to public crime information is making headway. Policy language Open data policies are now including language that covers how vendors deal with public data. Check out the language in the draft open data policy for Jersey City : All data or data sets published pursuant to Section III shall be published in a non-proprietary, searchable, sortable, platform-independent, machine-readable format.  All data or data sets shall include available metadata.   To the greatest extent practicable, the City shall assign unique identifiers to all data and data sets.  The City shall not place any restrictions on third-party reuse of data or data sets.  The City shall not provide to third parties any copies, records or logs of the identities or IP addresses of individuals access

Primetime crime has come to daytime!  SpotCrime is now powering the crime maps for Crime Watch Daily, the brand new hour-long news and investigative crime show covering the most compelling aspects of the world of crime, mystery, and intrigue. From unsolved murders to must-see mysteries, undercover investigations and shocking crimes caught on video, the series will uncover the stories happening in small towns around America and turn them into national headlines. Partnerships like these help SpotCrime push out important and pertinent crime information to even more vigilant residents like you. We are committed to helping communities stay aware. Below is just one of many investigative pieces on how social media posts can potentially lead to stalking. So tune in weekdays! And don’t forget to check out their crime map! http://bit.ly/CWDcrimemap #WeAreWatching To find out when Crime Watch Daily airs in your city, click here http://bit.ly/CWDwhenitson

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

SpotCrime Crime Listing of Baltimore May homicides. To create your own SpotCrime Crime List click here . Our hometown of Baltimore saw absolute madness in May. We've put together a SpotCrime Crime Listing map of the homicides and shootings that we've been able to find, address, and map which occurred in May in Baltimore city. To view the entire list, click here . There are 39 incidents on this crime list. One incident is a quintuple shooting , multiple incidents list victims being shot multiple times. Most of the victims appear to be men, but there are a few women involved. The main weapon used is a gun, however there are a few stabbings listed. The Baltimore Sun reports 43 homicides, one of the deadliest months the city has seen since the 42 homicides that occurred in August of 1990, with 115 homicides to date in 2015. The Baltimore Sun also has a homicide map compiling homicide data from May. Check out their map here . NPR notes a 76% increase in shootings

We updated our front page today! Check it out at http://spotcrime.com The major difference is we made the top bar smaller and changed the color from red to white. We wanted to move everything up the page a bit more for viewers. And we felt the color change from red to white helps lead your eyes to the important stuff - the icons on the map! We also updated our email alerts the other. We created more white space, made font larger, and made it easier to view the email as a web page if needed. What are your thoughts? Do you like the changes? Have ideas of your own? Let us know feedback@spotcrime.com!

There were 20 shooting incidents in Baltimore City from this past Friday (June 21) to today (June 25). Check out a screenshot of the crime list below. View the entire crime list here. Here are some numbers to put into perspective how crazy this weekend was in Charm City: There were 20 incidents that were located in 7 of the 9 police districts over a span of about 5 days. From the information that can be collected from the crime list, there were 27 victims (some with multiple gun wounds), 14 were men and 6 were women. Thankfully, we don't see any children listed as victims. Some say the more the temperature increase, the more crime that takes place. Let's hope Baltimore cools off for the rest of the summer. Want to know how you can stop this violence? Know someone who has an illegal handgun? The BPD has a program for that, check it out here . You can get involved with your community by starting a community watch. Talk to and get to know your neighbors. Check out SpotCr

http://www.popvssoda.com/ Is it Soda or is it Pop? Is it a Theft or a Burglary ? You’d describe both objects the same, but depending on where you live in the country, you will call the same object by a different name. Soda vs Pop; Gumband vs Rubberband; Dad vs Pop; Clicker vs Remote vs TV Changer; Ya’ll vs Yins vs Yous; Pocketbook vs Purse vs Handbag; Monkeyball vs Gumball;  feels like the list is never ending! This can also be applied to words when describing crimes on a crime map . In categorizing thefts and burglaries, this word conundrum also happens. For example, cars.  When someone steals something from a car - is it a theft or burglary? For SpotCrime , we usually rely on the agency to classify these. Most Universities classify them as burglaries and many police agencies use theft.   Shootings , however, are a different story for us. Most often a shooting is lumped into a category of aggravated assault. We break out shooting when we can - because our maps are designed for a