SpotCrime - The Public's Crime Map

According to Compete.com , 55% of the people looking at the major crime maps in the US for July 2012 go to SpotCrime.com. Here's the breakdown and chart below: Thanks everyone for making SpotCrime the most visited crime mapping website in the US.   And many thanks to all the police agencies who make their data fully public without restrictions on sharing.   We should all be in this fight against crime together. Finally, a big thank you to our media partners who help us get this vital public information to the public.  Knowledge is power, and transparency strengthens our great democracy. We should all have equal and fair access to crime information for our neighborhoods.

We are testing out some SpotCrime data on ArcGIS.  Check it out View Larger Map It was fairly simple.  Choose the basemap you want to use, then add a layer by uploading a file with data and, boom goes the dynamite , you have a crime map. You can hover over each orange dot to view some metadata about the point.  This is a great feature, however I would find the map more useful if I could make each incident a different icon.  This is what I like about SpotCrime - our picture icons are easily identifiable.  I'd also like a search option (date range, crime type, keyword). The best thing about this map is the share feature - you can easily embed the map, share it on Facebook or Twitter, or share the link with whomever you want. Check out the ArcGIS ESRI site here Don't see your city on SpotCrime ?  Reach out to your local PD and ask them to send us data.  We will map it for free!

This may be a stretch, but we’ve been thinking about how the great Baltimore Fire and access to crime data are related. The Great Baltimore Fire spanned over two days in February of 1904.  It took the effort of 1,231 firefighters from 4 different cities to bring the fire under control that destroyed over 1,500 buildings in central Baltimore.  At the time, there were no set standards in the fire equipment used by fire departments nation wide.  Therefore,  the fire lasted for 31 hours because the departments that assisted the Baltimore Fire Department had hose couplings that could not fit Baltimore's hydrants.   Similarly, when a police department uses proprietary data distribution, it prevents others from hooking up and helping.  The data is supplied (like the water) but the manner in which the data is displayed (the hose couplings) is different.  Proprietary data distribution prevents others from using and publicizing the data, further hindering the message to the publi

SpotCrime – the most comprehensive online source for crime data – has become the most visited crime mapping website in the U.S., surpassing 300,000 subscribers. The company currently sends subscribers 3.5 million email alerts monthly. With its media partners and multiple websites, SpotCrime estimates more than 6 million people interact with the crime data the company generates each month. “The more people are aware of what’s occurring in their communities, the higher the chance that community will be proactive in the fight against crime,” says SpotCrime Founder and President Colin Drane. “Our goal is for SpotCrime to distribute crime data worldwide, decreasing crime rates and increasing peace of mind.” Through its proprietary model, SpotCrime pulls crime incident data from multiple sources, including state and local police departments and validated news sources, to produce a comprehensive record of local crime information. Drane estimates that SpotCrime will hav

The original title of this blog post was- If A Crime is Mapped and No One Sees It- What's the Point? Roughly four years ago, I started SpotCrime in Baltimore as a hobby.  Baltimore is a particularly violent city, and as a transplant from Philadelphia, I wanted to know where the shootings were happening that I was hearing about everyday.  I also was personally enamored by the idea of crowd sourcing and envisioned the public interacting with crime data and helping law enforcement reduce crime. To answer the question - Why do We Map Crime?  SpotCrime maps crime to identify it's approximate location and deliver that information to anyone interested in crime information for the general area. Put simply, we map crime so we can deliver relevant information to those interested in being informed about crime. Today we send out over 100,000 crime alert emails a day and by next month will have 300,000 subscribers.   We are still amateurs in the crime mapping space defined in terms

This post is a response to LA Times article by Ben Welsh regarding the Torrance Crime Map. Link Here   While I think the LA Times brings up important issues regarding what should be released in terms of crime data particularly rape offenses, I think it is also important to discuss that having the dominant newspaper in a city get an exclusive feed to crime data is not a long term positive for the public.  In LA for example, you have two players with exclusive data access to crime - The LA Times and the crime mapping vendor being paid by the city.  Both entities have economic incentives to keep their exclusive access to the detriment of the public. While there should be no expectation that either entity should not pursue their economic goals, it should be incumbent on the city and the police department to have policies in place that don't allow monopoly access to one or a few entities.   Allowing one or a few entities have monopoly control over timely public crime data allows those

Great day for SpotCrime today.  We've reached 250,000 subscribers late last night.  Thanks everyone for signing up and please provide feedback when you get the chance.  Your input helps us improve.  And, if we are not getting data from your local Police or Sheriff department, please ask them to share with us.  We'll map and provide alerts for free. NBC NYC did a story on SpotCrime last night.  You can see the video here: http://www.nbcnewyork.com/on-air/as-seen-on/New_App_Tracks_Crime_by_Neighborhood_New_York- 121382328.html And here: http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Neighborhood-Crime-Watch-Goes-Digital-121363264.html Thanks Tom Llamas

Our sister crime mapping site, MyLocalCrime, now has a full screen view.  This works great on most screens including the iPad.  The map is fully functional.  Click anywhere and the map will refresh with  crime data around the point you've picked, or enter an address in the top right of the screen.  As always, you can sign up for crime alerts.  This is a free service to all police agencies .  So if you don't see your police department participating.  Ask them to share data with us, and we'll map it - no charge to you or your police department!  

Crime Tracker | WCBD-TV 2 :

Today we eclipsed 200,000 in alert sign ups for SpotCrime! Earlier this month, we reached 100k in daily alerts are now routinely exceeding 100 k alerts each day. This does not include SpotCrime's other platforms. (DirecTV, iPhone, Layar, and Aloqa) Adding in our media outlets, over 1 m. people monthly interact with our crime data. And we now have over 14 m. crimes mapped. If we are not mapping your neighborhood, let us know, and we will reach out to your police department.

Drawing from the success and positive response from our sister site- MyLocalCrime.com . We've just changed the front page of SpotCrime. The new SpotCrime layout still has similar features The new page is designed to give immediate crime information around your location, make sure to click 'Accept' or Approve' in your browser to share your location with us. We'll do the rest, and provide a crime map of your location with the most recent crime data we have available. Below the map, you'll find a crime table of incidents based on proximity and date. Pull down menu to search by state is still available, make sure to click 'GO' after you select your state You can still find our fully functional interactive maps by using the pull down menu on the top left and selecting your state. From there, chose your city or neighborhood crime map, and you'll be able to access a fully searchable crime map. We do not remove historical data, so plea

SpotCrime is now mapping crimes provided by the Orange County Sheriff's Office . You can now search SpotCrime maps for information about serious crimes like burglaries, thefts and robberies for the entire Orange County area. According to the Orange County map, there have been several reports of burglaries so far in the first half of 2010. Did any of these happen in your neighborhood? Click the link below to view our interactive map and search the latest crime data. http://spotcrime.com/fl/orange+county As always, SpotCrime provides free daily crime alerts by text message and email. Know your neighborhood! Register for your today at www.spotcrime.com . On Facebook? Become a SpotCrime fan!

Now you can get hyper-local crime data on your television if you have DirecTV. SpotCrime has just launched an app delivering near real time crime data to your television with a few clicks of the remote. The application provides a crime listing of incidents in your area and a map of those incidents. Click on the image below to see instruction on adding the app to your DirecTV box:

BALTIMORE, MD (1/6/10) --- The only national crime map providing up-to-date crime data from every major U.S. city, as well as numerous foreign markets, is now available to iPhone users nationwide. The SpotCrime iPhone mobile application is also the first crime map to feature augmented reality (AR) views of criminal activity. AR allows users to see a live view of a real-world environment (a street corner, for example) whose elements are merged – or augmented – with computer-generated imagery of crimes which have occurred in that location. “Using the iPhone’s GPS to find specific locations, the SpotCrime iPhone application provides up-to-date details about actual crime incidents that have taken place, as well as real-time personal and property safety ratings for specific areas,” says SpotCrime Founder and President Colin Drane. Crime alerts use multiple radii, from 2 – 25 miles, determined by the user. “Making this kind of information available on a mobile device gives users a

The above map was created with the data provided by the Baltimore Crime Blog . To get the map, go to SpotCrime Baltimore , change the date range from 1/1/09 to 12/31/09, and add "murdered" in the keyword search. For this map, we've changed the view type to "terrain". The Baltimore Sun has another version that can be seen here: Link to Baltimore Sun Murder Map Murders for 2009 in Baltimore is estimated to be above 230. Compared to New York's murders for 2009 ( NYT - 390), Baltimore's per capita murders would have been 15. Conversely, if New York had Baltimore's rate, there would have been 6,225 murders in New York for 2009. SpotCrime's Mission: Founded in Baltimore, SpotCrime will continue its effort to help catalog and distribute crime data for public view. It is our contention that technology advancements have made it possible for almost every police agency to make their crime data fully available to the public at minimal cost. By "

What is a Google Mapplet? It is a mini-application that runs on top of Google Maps. SpotCrime has two mapplets in the Google Directory. When signed into Google go to "my maps" and click on "browse directory". To see SpotCrime crime icons on Google Maps, click on "add to maps" for the following mapplet: To see a crime hot spot grid for almost every city in the US, click on the SpotCrime SafeRouter Mapplet: Once you've clicked on "Add it to Maps" for either mapplet, go back to Google maps and wait for the data to show up on the map. To use the mapplets again, you may need to select them again from the directory. Here's an example of both mapplets on one Baltimore Google Map. Notice the grid and the icons. The icons represent individual crimes and the grid represents crime density.

SpotCrime is now getting daily crime data from the Rock Mount Police Department . To see an interactive crime map of the last 60 days, click Here . Daily crime alerts are provided by SpotCrime through email and SMS.

Hardee County was created in 1921. It was named after former Florida Governor, Cary A. Hardee who served from 1921 to 1925. As of the year 2005 the county had a population of 28,286. SpotCrime is proud to feature up to date information direct from the Hardee County Sheriff's Department on our maps. Please click on the following link to see a fully interactive crime map. http://spotcrime.com/fl/hardee county As always, SpotCrime provides free crime alerts by email and text messages. Know your neighborhood with SpotCrime.com

In the world of hip hop music references to criminal activity such as robbery, drug dealing and even murder are commonplace. Unfortunately in some of these cases art imitates life and the very activities occasionally referenced in the music of certain artists are reflected in real life violence. Tupac Shakur, already the victim of one shooting, was gunned down in Las Vegas on September the 7th 1996. The murder has never been solved. Christopher Wallace better known to the world as the Notorious B.I.G. was gunned down in what perhaps was a retaliation for the murder of Shakur on March the 9th 1997 in Los Angeles. This murder has also remained unsolved to this day. In a separate, but no less tragic incident; the closest friend of famed Detroit rapper Eminem, DeShaun Dupree Holton (alias Proof) was gunned down in Detroit on April the 11th 2006. The shooting resulted from an argument in a club on Detroits 8 Mile stretch. Below is a map of the shootings: A detailed crime listing is availabl

In addition to providing the most accurate and up to date crime maps and reports daily, SpotCrime also features archived cases and reports on our maps pertaining to famous historical crimes. In this first addition of Spot Historical Crimes, we will investigate the Beltway Sniper Shootings of 2002. In October of 2002, Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia were terrorized by a series of sniper attacks. 17 people were murdered in the terror that ensued. The culprits, John Muhammad and Lee Malvo shot their victims at a distance from the trunk of their Blue 1990 Chevrolet Caprice with a .223 caliber rifle equipped with a red-dot sight at ranges of between 50 and over 100 yards. The culprits left tarot cards at some of their crime scenes, one of which can be seen below. The pair was arrested October 24, 2002, sleeping in their car at a Maryland rest stop. Malvo eventually testified against Muhammad and is serving life in prison. Muhammad is currently