SpotCrime - The Public's Crime Map

Louisiana law department that polices itself, medical workers for mental health, police officer identification stickers for special needs residents, stopping retail mob thefts, Indianapolis campus safety, gun violence, transparency and trust in law enforcement, public access to body cam footage, Tallahassee backtracks on new crime alert policy, second chances in Pennsylvania's sentencing system, and more... POLICE CONDUCT Former Clay County sheriff's criminal trial could be delayed  (First Coast News) UNWATCHED: A Louisiana Law Department That Polices Itself  (ProPublica) Florida massacre families to get millions for FBI’s inaction  (AP) As O.C. police face scrutiny for shootings, Irvine starts using medical workers for mental health calls  (LATimes) Police offering stickers for special needs residents  (The Downey Patriot) Billionaire Ross Perot, Jr. donates new helicopter to Dallas Police Department  (WFAA) Biden signs three bills benefitting police, firs...

Body cam rollout and transparency delay, gunshot detection effectiveness, white collar crime prosecutions decline, officer wrongdoing investigations plummet after body cams, police surveillance, Dallas crime fighting plan results, taking away access to physical mail from prisoners, and more... POLICE CONDUCT Scottsdale police open internal affairs investigation after woman was falsely accused  (AZ Central) Investigations into officer wrongdoing plummet following the adoption of body cams  (First Coast News) Appeals court reverses itself, rules in Boynton case that people can videotape police  (Palm Beach Post) Governor’s Policing Surge In Jackson May Not Prevent Violence, Address Causes  (Jackson Free Press) CRIME RATE Indianapolis leaders look to more data, community outreach in effort to reduce violent crime  (FOX59) see also:  CRIME MAPPING: Tracking homicides across Indianapolis  (FOX59)  White-Collar Crime Prosecutions Continue 20-Year Declin...

Addressing the inaccuracies of predictive AI in policing, Boston looks at new way behind parking tickets, ceasefire in Baltimore working?, changing course in addressing overdoses, and more... POLICE CONDUCT This Tiny Louisiana Police Force Is a National Leader in Taking Guns From Abusers  (The Trace) St. Paul police adopt policy changing how emergency calls are prioritized   (KMSP) D.C. issues record $1 billion in traffic and parking tickets, AAA calls it 'predatory'  (WJLA) see also:  Boston parking proposal: Adjust tickets based on driver's income  (WCVB) Video: Orlando Cops Arrest Crying Six-Year-Old Girl One of the officers was fired after arresting two six-year-olds in one day.  (Reason.com) LAPD not giving up on data-driven policing, even after scrapping controversial program  (CBS News) CRIME RATE Internal documents, whistleblowers point to alleged underreporting of crime by DC Police  (WUSA) With initiative to curb fear of ...

Amazon has narrowed down the locations for their second headquarters to a list of 20 finalists  out of the 238 cities and regions that applied. The winning city could get up to 50,000 high-paying jobs and $5 billion in investment, boosting the local economy. Amazon's requirements were metropolitan areas with a population greater than one million and the ability to attract and keep strong technical talent.  SpotCrime is mapping crime in almost every major city in the US. We took a look at the 20 finalists  to see if we were mapping crime in cities appealing to Amazon.  We are aggregating good data from all by 1 city! This is good for Amazon - we believe a city with great police data transparency means better community relations and an open feedback loop. Cities who are transparent with crime data are typically transparent with other types of data, like transit or financial data, which can make addressing the growing pains that come with building their a mas...

There are many problems plaguing police community relations right now. Running SpotCrime, it is something I think about often in terms of improving trust between the public and the police so that we all focus on the target of reducing crime instead of pointing fingers at each other. We identify this as improving the trust quotient between law enforcement and the community. I often want to draw inferences about transparency and the quality of policing. Truthfully, we have not explored the data in terms of finding anything statistical about this. Most of our experience is anecdotal. Intuitively, I think we can all agree that if a police department is making a sincere effort to be transparent with the public they are moving in the right direction.  We’ve seen crime data transparency within police agencies develop in a couple of different ways throughout the years. There are some agencies who still do not make an effort to be open and transparent with crime data, but typical...

Only the fastest, strongest, biggest, and most aggressive players rise to the top to make millions as a professional in the National Football League. A recent study addressed a question that comes to mind when there is yet another NFL player arrest in the news - is the NFL’s ‘crime epidemic’ real? The study looked at arrest data of the general population of males between 20-39 and NFL players over 14 years. Here are the three conclusions that were drawn: Between 2000-2013, the U.S. general population of males aged 20-39 had a significantly higher total arrest rate than NFL players. In fact, these differences were about one and a half to two times higher. For both public order violations and property crimes, once again, the U.S. general population had higher arrest rates. The findings regarding violence were mixed. In six of the 14 yearly comparisons, the NFL data showed a significantly higher violent arrest rate than the U.S. general population. We took a look at...

We’ve updated our Crime Data Transparency Ranking table. Check out the new table below and make sure to check out our previous blog for information on how we rank each city. We’re keeping a live table available to view any time we make updates  here . Static list of SpotCrime Crime Data Transparency rankings. View a live list here . Way to go Boston and New York City! These are the two cities we happily upgraded. Boston now posts their crime data on their open data site - they’ve been upgraded from a 1 to a 2. NYC is now publishing the NYPD Crime Map. They went from giving out almost no information to giving out monthly data. Since the data is monthly and there’s no true download option for all of the data, we’ve only upgraded them to a 1 (previously a 0). Colorado Springs doesn’t have an all-inclusive feed, but they are producing a crime blotter. We’ve moved them from a 0 to a 1. We’ve added New Orleans (NOLA) to our list. They’ve started posting data on t...

The value of implementing and using an open crime data standard is endless. That’s why we created the SpotCrime Open Crime Standard (SOCS ). Here’s an example how SOCS can help. Three cities have recently announced their availability of crime data to the public - Toledo, Columbus, and Indianapolis.  If you were to check out each city’s crime data source, you’ll find that three cities use different approaches and methodologies in releasing public crime data. And, only Columbus provides an open data table. SOCS solves all three of these city’s issues by not only encouraging agencies to release crime data openly, but standardizing how agencies open up and create crime data feeds. It also encourages police departments to give the public and the press all the data - not just snippets.  Toledo announced the release of their new crime map this past month. The map limits the radius that can be searched (to ½ mile) and you can’t access the data in an open format . If you...