New Programs Put Crime Stats on the Map
By Bobby White, from the Wall Street Journal, June 3, 2009
Read the article on WSJ.com
When a burglar broke into a home on the outskirts of Riverdale Park, Md., last month, some locals quickly received an email alert about the incident. Once police confirmed the crime on the scene, they followed up with a more thorough email disclosing the time, location and type of crime.
The alert is part of a crime-information service that the Riverdale Park police department provides its residents about illegal activity in their neighborhoods. "It helps us keep the public informed," says Teresa Chambers, police chief of Riverdale Park, a suburb of Washington, D.C. "It's also a way for us to solicit help [from residents] in solving some of these crimes."
Across the country, Americans can increasingly track crime trends block by block as more police departments contract with Internet-based crime-mapping services. Since 2007, more than 800 police departments have begun working with Web sites like CrimeMapping.com, CrimeReports.com and EveryBlock.com. The services take live feeds from police record-keeping systems and automatically post the data on their sites.
While the Web sites are free for consumers, they charge police departments about $200 a month to participate and they also sell advertising.
Police say they use the sites to help change citizens' behavior toward crime and encourage dialogue with communities so that more people might offer tips or leads. Some of the sites have crime-report blogs that examine activity in different locales. They also allow residents to offer tips and report crimes under way.
Police have traditionally depended on media reports and community meetings to inform the public about neighborhood crime. Many departments have been reluctant to share too much information with the public out of concern it could be used as a political tool, says Thomas Casady, police chief of Lincoln, Neb. But the rise of Web services that publish records online has forced some of the departments to reconsider. Some of these sites operate independently of the police department, putting pressure on police to participate, Mr. Casady says.
In Utah, Attorney General Mark Shurtleff says he lobbied the state legislature for funding to allow all of Utah's local police departments to link their record-keeping files with CrimeReports.com's back-office systems in late 2007. About 80% of the state's local departments have since signed up, he says. "We wanted to stoke citizen involvement," Mr. Shurtleff says. "We don't expect vigilantes but we do want people to be aware and play a greater role in confronting illegal activity in their community."
To track crime trends, consumers type an address or city into a search query on the Web sites. Small icons representing types of crime, like auto theft or aggravated assault, appear on a map. Users can set the parameters for a search, including a specific time period. Law enforcement can add comments or ask the public for more information about an incident.
Work in Progress
Some Web services are still a work in progress. Occasionally, some get the location of a crime wrong because of glitches in their underlying software. Several of the services also use programs that scan law-enforcement Web sites and grab old information.
Many crime sites, including CrimeReports.com and CrimeMapping.com, began sprouting up in 2007, with the launch of Google Maps. An Internet-enabled mapping service that provides satellite images for most urban areas, Google Maps gave crime mapping a cost-effective foundation. The crime-mapping services were then able to focus exclusively on software that recognized addresses and build systems capable of pulling data from police records. "Google Maps gave us an easy and efficient platform to work with," says Talal Albagbadi, director of marketing for Omega Group, a San Diego, Calif., crime-analytics software provider that runs CrimeMapping.com.
The Web services remain small -- CrimeReports.com says it has 70,000 users and CrimeMapping.com says it has 3,000 users -- but consumers who use them say the services have made them feel safer. Robin Harmstom, a mother in Salt Lake City, Utah, began using CrimeReports.com a year ago after attending a community meeting and learning a neighbor's home had been burglarized.
After logging on to the site, Ms. Harmstom, 35, learned that a rash of robberies had occurred in her neighborhood a few blocks from her home. Afterward, she made sure to lock all windows and doors and pay closer attention to unusual activity around the neighborhood. "Before this, I rarely talked to my neighbors," says Ms. Harmstom, adding that she has since become more involved in community meetings.
Other consumers are integrating the services into their workplace. Linda Horensavitz, a property manager with Flower Hill Central Corp. in Gaithersburg, Md., says she checks CrimeReports.com every morning to help keep tabs on crime around the 2,000 apartment units, townhouses and single-family properties she manages.
When a crime appears on the site, Ms. Horensavitz sends out notifications to civic groups and homeowner associations at some of the properties. That helps prevent more break-ins, which leads to lower maintenance costs at the properties. "It's a great way to utilize technology to get the word out," she says.
Tips From the Public
In Riverdale Park, Ms. Chambers, the police chief, says the Web service has sparked more dialogue between residents and her department. Residents now often ask for more details on specific crime alerts or inquire when spotting trends whether the police will step up patrols on a certain block, she says. It has also led to some tips from the public that have resulted in arrests.
Last year, for instance, 66-year-old Riverdale Park resident Louis King noticed some suspiciously heavy foot traffic at a neighbor's house. Mr. King, an active user of CrimeReports.com since 2007, says he monitored the site for arrests at the house. When he didn't see any after a few months, he alerted police. His tip led to increased patrols in the neighborhood and in August, police made an arrest for a domestic disturbance.
"I'm always chatting with police about what I see on the site," says Mr. King. "It's the perfect tool to stay informed about what's going on around you."
Write to Bobby White at bobby.white@wsj.com
Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page D1