Crime Maps Should Not Be Rube Goldberg Machines
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 vendor that puts restr