SpotCrime - The Public's Crime Map

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...

We’ve put together a list of open crime data resources for anyone interested. Our hope is these resources will help answer questions like how, what, why, and how much. Or any other questions that may be thrown your way. Crime Data related resources SpotCrime Open Crime Data Standard (SOCS) http://blog.spotcrime.com/2014/03/the-spotcrime-open-crime-data-standard.html We’re a bit biased with this one, but we’ve received feedback from agencies across the country. Overall feedback has been great and we’ve found if agencies don’t follow SOCS completely, it has been a good starting point for open crime data initiatives. Agencies like Montgomery County (MD) and NORCOM (Seattle area) utilize SOCS. Public Safety Open Data Portal Police Data Initiative http://publicsafetydataportal.org/ The White House Task Force on 21st Century Policing launched in 2014 and kick started the Police Data Initiative - an initiative encouraging police agencies to be open and transparent with c...