SpotCrime - The Public's Crime Map

Moving soon? Renting or planning to buy? SpotCrime can help! Crime is a big issue that comes to mind when you find yourself in a move. Nobody wants to put themselves or their family in a potentially harmful area or situation. SpotCrime is the most visited crime mapping site - for good reason. We offer many ways to users to view crime in their area. Here are just a few suggestions to help in your home search. SpotCrime and MyLocalCrime Once you’ve found the area you’re interested in moving to, head to SpotCrime or MyLocalCrime (or SpotCrime.info if you're on your mobile) for a quick view of crime in the area. It would be a good idea to check out crime around any shopping centers you would frequent and around any schools your children would attend, too. Keep in mind that icons like shootings, assaults, robberies, or burglaries are pretty serious crimes to consider when buying or renting a house. Seeing too much crime? Take into consideration the population of the city. Typically

We’ve be arguing for open crime data since our launch in 2007. Now that the open data movement has picked momentum, we are hoping to see more and more police agencies and cities around the country embrace the open data model with public crime data. This post has been inspired by many articles we’ve read recently. Check out our Open Data board on Pinterest  for more resources. What is Open Crime Data? Open crime data should include all crime related information that is not subject to privacy laws like victim’s names or juvenile information. It shouldn’t be a requirement by police agencies to fill out a lengthy FOIA to get public information. Instead, it should be released by agencies in a timely manner (like daily) instead of monthly or quarterly or annually like UCR reports. A good solution would be to post the information in a machine readable format on the agency’s website. For example, Philadelphia is has an API, Baltimore uses an open data portal, and Los Angeles has a crime da

We’ve rolled out with a brand new iPhone app! It’s free and you can find it in the iTunes store here . The new app features a sleeker design and bigger map for you to view crime incidents in your neighborhood. And, we’ve added a crime tip feature where you can anonymously leave crime tips. Check it out and let us know what you think! Have an Android? We’ve got you covered - check out our Android app in the Google Play store here . If you don’t see crime data on the map, ask your local police department to be transparent with their crime data and SpotCrime will map it - for free. Stay aware and stay safe!

Here at SpotCrime , we think we’ve seen and read it all in terms of ridiculous crime stories. But, just when you think you’ve seen the most ridiculous story, we stumble across a story 200 times more ridiculous. We try to share all kinds of stories with you on our Facebook pages - SpotCrime and MyLocalCrime - and always welcome your feedback and comments. Starting a discussion about crime is a good step in the right direction for safer communities. Here is a list we’ve compiled of the most ridiculous stories we saw over 2013. Stories that make you want to do the Homer Simpson ‘Doh!’ forehead slap. Enjoy! The DUI Couple A husband and wife from Pennsylvania were charged with separate DUI's. The husband got picked up for a DUI, then his wife showed up to the police station to pick him up - under the influence.  View the entire story here. Smart Phone = Smart Victim = Dumb Criminal Anyone who attempts to steal a smart phone and leaves the smart phone on is and idio

SpotCrime has been trying to collect crime data from Jersey City , population 247k, since we first started mapping crime nationwide. We found Jersey City calls for service on the Jersey City open data portal last week and immediately loaded the information to SpotCrime. Check it out here. When we checked today for more data, we found the open data link no longer displays the feed. Perhaps Jersey City saw the positive feedback from the NYPD Crime map and decided to post crime data. We're hoping decision's like NYPD's to release crime data (even though we weren't completely satisfied with their map) help encourage other cities to release crime data. Or maybe it was a move by the new mayor, police chief, and pubic safety director. In a lot of cities, the Mayor sometimes has a role in decisions made by the Chief of Police, including wether or not they stay around. Former Chief Tom Comey retired shortly after Former Mayor Jerrimiah Healy lost the mayoral race

Santa Maria is located in north of Los Angeles just outside of Vandenberg Air Force Base in Santa Barbara County . The population is over 100k make it the largest city in the county, ahead of Santa Barbara . Known for it's barbecued meat, in 2013 Sunset Magazine crowned Santa Maria 'The West's Best BBQ Town' and the city is also located within Santa Barbara County's wine country. We first reached out to Santa Maria with the help of a user who was interested in seeing Santa Maria crime on SpotCrime and in their SpotCrime email alerts . We worked with the SMPD to generate a file from their system that we upload weekly. Interested in seeing your city on SpotCrime ? Contact us and let us know. Make sure to also reach out to your local police agency and let them know about SpotCrime. If they send us crime information, we will map it and send out email alerts for free! Stay aware, stay safe.

Born after events leading up to 9/11, N-DeX is the FBI’s National Data Exchange. It was created to help share information across criminal justice agencies in the US. There are hundreds of records management systems utilized in the US and until the evolution of N-DeX, there was no easy way to share information between jurisdictions unless records systems were already connected. N-DeX creates an easier way to link and analyze cross jurisdictional information. This way, police agencies can root out threats before attacks occur as well as accelerating the investigation process. N-DeX is a cloud based system meaning that police agencies can access the system from any secure computer and there is no actual paperwork that needs to be sorted through and sent to retrieve information. Each agency participating will get a secure log in and user name to the database. And it’s free! Here is a video explaining more about how N-DeX works. However, not all agencies are using the N-DeX syste