A Tale of Two Canadian Crime Maps
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