SpotCrime - The Public's Crime Map

Early intervention systems to reduce police violence, KKK embedded in Florida law enforcement, crisis response team achieve 70% reduction in people taken into custody, gun violence, pediatric gun violence costs, more guns than ever stolen from cars in Nashville, predictive policing, spy tech in Boston, DNA tests, Dallas roll back open data, restorative justice, and more... POLICE CONDUCT Early Intervention Systems (EIS) may be effective in reducing police violence and other forms of misconduct. However, there is scant research finding direct, causal effects of such systems on officer performance outcomes  (CCJ Task Force on Policing) We Tracked What Happens to Police After They Use Force on Protesters  (ProPublica) KKK members embedded in Florida law enforcement An Army veteran was undercover with the KKK for 10 years as part of an FBI investigation.  (First Coast News) New law named for Vanessa Guillén will revamp military investigations into sexual assault, harassment  (KSAT) Crisis

In 2019, we published an op-ed at the University of Florida Brechner Center Freedom of Information outlining the issues Marsy’s Law has caused in the collection of public crime information. Two years later, Marsy's Law in Florida continues to take its toll on police transparency. Many other states have implemented their own version of Marsy’s Law without creating problems related to police transparency now faced in Florida. It appears other states have found ways to discern between the intent of Marsy’s Law to protect victims rights to privacy, while also making sure the public has access to pertinent information related to crime, policing, and government transparency. Luckily since our op-ed, we have not run into any other notable police agencies using Marsy’s Law as a blanket exemption to releasing public crime blotter information. However, the original three agencies - Polk County Sheriff, Pasco County Sheriff, and Lake County Sheriff - are still not making crime blotter inform

SpotCrime has been asked to submit testimony on an upcoming Kansas Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) hearing that will be discussing changes to the current FOIA laws, bringing transparency in Kansas into the 21st century. You can read the testimony we submitted below. This is not our first time providing testimony on access to public information. In 2014, we were asked to provide oral and written testimony on the Maryland Open Data Bill (SB644) . The data SpotCrime collects is public information, so if a police agency is not already openly releasing the data publicly to their website or they don't have some sort of public blotter, we are sometimes directed to submit a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain the information. This has allowed SpotCrime to provide an invaluable case study on how transparency and public access laws are being applied at the the local level. We've found that after we submit the same request to local jurisdictions, each police agency ha