CrimeReport: Web 2.0 To The Rescue

CrimeReport is a site that puts crime on the map, literally. Inspired by a bad experience had by its creator, CrimeReport puts everything from arrests to police reports in map format for users to find. Intended to help people avoid the pitfalls of everyday life, from moving to selling things online, CrimeReport is an excellent resource.

People turning to CrimeReport will find an easy to use map interface that lets you select your area from a drop-down state menu, working down. Not every state is in the database yet, but CrimeReport is actively seeking law enforcement involvement in the remaining states.

Meanwhile, citizens of states that have signed up can do more than just browse their area online. They can also sign up for the site and receive emailed reports when new crimes are reported or arrests are made, keeping them constantly in the loop.

Law enforcement professionals can sign up on the other side of the equation, agreeing to add CrimeReport to the places they submit their crime statistics. The service is free to use for civilians. Once you have selected your state and police department from the drop down menus, a map is produced showing icons that indicate various crimes. Clicking the icons will bring up a full description, and the crimes are also listed in the site sidebar.

Once a police department has signed up for the program, the crime stats are available to the public as more than just a map. You can also see the information in a format similar to that of Google's Analytics program, displayed in charts and graphs like web stats.

Since the site is there to make information on crime more easily relayed to the citizen in an area, the site is easy to use for the regular person. What about on the law enforcement side?

CrimeReports.com has been an invaluable tool for the Metropolitan Police Department to get useful information out to the community in a timely and efficient manner. Our whole philosophy of community policing is predicated on the easy and open exchange of information between police and community. CrimeReports.com helps to make that happen.
Kevin Morison Director of Corporate Communications Metropolitan Police of Washington, DC

The site uses the raw RMS or CAD data that law enforcement agencies already generate to create its database of crimes. That means no extra data entry for over worked law enforcement officers. CrimeReport also offers a way for police departments to put the data on their site as well as in the CrimeReport database.

CrimeReport is free for the average person to use, but there is a fee on the law enforcement side. CrimeReport offers a fully integrated service on both the CrimeReport site and the police department site, including support. That makes them a low cost option for the budget strapped police department to add the ability to push information to the people who need it most – their fellow citizens. That's well worth the $100 – $200 fee.

CrimeReport currently has 40 police departments from around the country signed up. It's ability to create a “mashup” between a departments messy internal records and a clean web interface is its strongest selling point. It takes dry report data and creates a visual anyone can understand. I think the site has a long way to go to be considered the best resource for crime in your area, but it has the potential to be the new standard for criminal data sourcing online.