SpotCrime - The Public's Crime Map

Policing riots and civil unrest, peaceful George Floyd protests, police and rioters clash while police and protesters work together, police accountability, police reform, police transparency, and more... POLICE CONDUCT 3 more cops charged in George Floyd death, other officer’s murder charge upgraded  (CNBC) Law enforcement agencies ban carotid restraint  (NBC San Diego) Houston officials to honor George Floyd with march, rally and offer to escort body  (Houston Chronicle) see also:  WATCH: Des Moines law enforcement kneels with protesters, dispersing group  (KCCI) and also:  Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson joins protesters marching for George Floyd  (NBC 25) These 4 charts describe police violence in America  (CNBC) see also:  Officer accused of pushing teen during protest has 71 use of force cases on file FDLE investigating Sunday incident involving Fort Lauderdale police officer Steven Pohorence  (Local10 News) How to reform Ameri...

The open crime data landscape is changing for the better . More and more cities are beginning to publish their crime data openly . We are seeing a shift away from data silos and move toward open data feeds and portals across the country. With advantages of transparency far outranking disadvantages (if any), hundreds of agencies are making their data openly accessible. At this point, it doesn’t make much sense why any police agency still isn’t on board with open data. The SpotCrime Transparency Ranking has been updated to reflect the changes. If you have any questions about any of the rankings, or if you’d like to see a city ranked that’s not on the list, please let us know !  Boston, MA: 0 to 2 They were a 0 in our last update because they upgraded their RMS system, but in the process of upgrading, their public access point to open crime data was kicked offline. When public access to data gets turned off because of an upgrade, we refer to it as ‘ upgrading ou...

What is Crim-Tech? You may be familiar with the term fin-tech. It stands for ‘financial technology’ and is defined as computer programs and other technology used to support or enable banking and financial services. It includes services as simple as online banking and PayPal to algorithms that attempt to predict the stock market. Although technology in policing isn’t a new idea, we have begun to see an influx in the amount of technology utilized by police agencies worldwide. Because of this, we’ve decided to coin the term ‘crim-tech’.  Crim-tech stands for ‘criminal technology’ and is defined as any computer program or other technology used to support or enable policing strategies. Examples of Crim-Tech Believe it or not, crim-tech has been around at police agencies for decades and is apparent in all aspects of policing, from the initial 911 call to the time someone is arrested. Walkie talkies appeared on the force after WWII. The 911 emergency calling system came a...

The Police Data Initiative is one of the programs rolled out by the White House’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing that encourages transparency with data. There are over 120 agencies participating in the PDI right now. PROS AND CONS (mostly pros) We’ve applied the SpotCrime Transparency ranking to PDI agencies below. As critical as it may seem to rank agencies, the ability to even consider a ranking is one of the reasons why the PDI is so important. It gives the public a chance to see how their agency matches up against others, creating more accountability. This ranking is not meant to discourage, but rather act as part of a public feedback loop that encourages agencies to accept criticism and make their data stronger and more transparent. PRO: Agencies can pick and choose which datasets they want to release giving the opportunity for more agencies to participate. The types of datasets include (but aren’t limited to):  -  RMS/CAD data  - Use of forc...

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...

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...

Updates have been made to the SpotCrime ‘Live’ Crime Data Transparency Ranking list. Only 1 city was upgraded to a 2 ranking - Baltimore. They added a calls for service and arrest data feeds after the Freddie Grey protests. 5 cities were downgraded. The recurring reason for the decrease in transparency across the country? Police system ‘upgrades’. The new year has brought dozens of RMS/CAD/database upgrades to police departments nationwide. It’s great to see agencies embracing new technology, however, these new upgrades are knocking public access to crime information offline. Boston, MA - 2 to a 0  BPD is no longer updating the open data feed due to RMS upgrade . No timeline has been given as to when the feed will be available again. Phoenix, AZ - 2 to a 1   The Phoenix  RMS upgrade knocked a weekly public file offline and dramatically decreased the the timeliness and quality of the data. St. Louis County, MO - 2 to a 0   St....

With the initiation of the White House Task Force on 21st Century Policing earlier this year, more and more police agencies are voluntarily signing up to take part in the Police Data Initiative . The initiative centers around police agencies opening up dozens of data sets that have otherwise been hard to find by the general public. 26 agencies are currently participating Here are just a few of the datasets being published openly by police agencies nationwide: Computer aided dispatch logs (CAD)  Records management system logs (RMS) Response time  Use of Force  Complaints  Officer Involved Shootings  Assaults on officers  Citations  Traffic Stops  Pedestrian Stops  Pursuits This list may seem overwhelming to some, however it's not impossible. So, where to start ? In some cases, we've seen agencies start to tackle this laundry list of data sets by publishing one dataset at a time. If this is the route your police agency de...

The Police Data Initiative was created under the White House Task Force on 21st Century Policing and ‘focuses on generating and implementing new data and technology innovations within key jurisdictions, civil society groups, and federal, state, and local agencies. PDI is centered on two key components: (1) using open data to build transparency and increase community trust, and (2) using data to enhance internal accountability through effective analysis.’ In other words, participating police agencies will start openly publishing datasets - ranging from incident data to arrests to police involved shootings. There is no set number of datasets police have to release in order to participate or a specific dataset that needs to be included. The easiest data sets to start with are the reports that are already getting created and used internally. Majority of the time, a police agency is already circulating a daily call log or incident log that is pulled from the RMS/CAD. This is the ...

The low hanging fruit for police agencies in the open data movement is opening up incident based RMS/CAD data. Typically RMS/CAD data is available, it’s just not in an open, machine readable format yet.  Here are 5 great reasons to make your police incident data open - meaning it’s made available in a machine readable format for anyone to collect, use, and share. 5) Proactively answer FOIAs By being proactive and making data available in an open format, it will create a one-stop shop for FOIA requests - lessening the time, money, and resources it takes to respond to hundreds of FOIA requests for the same information. 4) Apps!  And not to mention FREE apps! Making the data openly available creates more opportunities for entrepreneurs to do something useful with the information. Something a police agency may not have the time or resources to commit their time to or afford. Check out the free SpotCrime apps for iPhone , Android , and Kindle Fire . 3) Th...

Over these past couple of weeks the Task Force on 21st Century Policing published a final report , and a White House Police Data Initiative was announced! We’ve been excited to see the results of police transparency and open data discussions by the White house. The Task Force on 21st Century Policing Final Report outlines 6 Pillars along with 59 recommendations for improvements to law enforcement. The Pillars include:  1. Building Trust and Legitimacy 2. Policy and Oversight 3. Technology and Social Media 4. Community Policing and Crime Reduction 5. Officer Training and Education 6. Officer Safety and Wellness.  The report concluded that  ‘Trust between law enforcement agencies and the people they protect and serve is essential in a democracy. It is key to the stability of our communities, the integrity of our criminal justice system, and the safe and effective delivery of policing services.’  We couldn’t agree more! The White House Police D...